Georgia receives UN Public Service Award

The United Nations Public Service Forum, Public Service Day and Public Service Awards Ceremony will honour Georgia for its project promoting a better future for all. The global Forum and Awards Ceremony will take place from 24 to 27 June 2013 in Manama, the Kingdom of Bahrain– the first time these events will be held in the Arab region.

 The UN Public Service Awards will honour projects that fight poverty and promote sustainable development.

Public Service Award winners

The Award winners will be presented to delegations from around the globe during the high-level Awards Ceremony on 27 June. The theme for this year’s global Forum is “Transformative e-Government and Innovation: Creating a Better Future for All”.

The winning project this year from Georgia  involves Initiative: Online Asset Declaration System (OADS) (Institution: Civil Service Bureau)

The lack of transparency around the financial assets of public sector officials in Georgia left room for corruptions and negatively impacted on the confidence in government. The assets and income of top government officials have long been the subject of public interest in Georgia.  However, Georgian society was largely unaware of the financial situation of their public officials. The government did not provide such information on the assets of public officials. Such conditions were conducive to corruption and the media and civil society were unable to monitor the activities of public officials with view to unlawful behaviour or conflict of interest. Overall, this impacted the public’s confidence in government and candidates for government positions.  In 2010, the Civil Service Bureau launched an online system to collect financial information of public officials. Through this online system government officials are required to fill out an asset declaration on an annual basis, reflecting the position of the assets owned by them and their family members. In total, there are more than 2,800 senior officials obliged to submit online asset declarations annually. This availability of such information has greatly contributed to accountability and transparency in Georgia and has increased public monitoring of public expenditures.

The 2013 winners are from the following countries:

1st place winners: Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, India, Italy, Moldova, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Republic of Korea, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, United Arab Emirates;

2nd place winners:  Bahrain, Botswana, Brazil, Ethiopia, Georgia, India, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, United Arab Emirates, United States of America.

For more information on the winning countries, please refer to the attached UNPSA factsheet.

The Forum and Awards Ceremony are hosted by the Government of the Kingdom of Bahrain and organized by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs Division for Public Administration and Development Management in partnership with UN-WOMEN, UNESCWA and UNIDO, among others.

In 2003, the UN General Assembly designated 23 June as UN Public Service Day to celebrate the value and virtue of service to the community.