Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Committee of Economic and Social Affairs (ECESA)on Governance and InstitutionBuilding (GIB) Cluster

United Nations Headquarters

Thursday, 10 April 2014 from 4:00PM to 5:30PM,

Conference Room B (Conference Building)

Present:

DPADM/UNDESA[1]
Mr. John-Mary Kauzya, Chief, Public Administration Capacity Branch (PACB)/Acting Director, DPADM
Ms. Elia Armstrong(Co-Chair), Chief, Development Management Branch (DMB)
Mr. Vincenzo Aquaro, Chief, eGovernment Branch (EGB)
Ms. AnniHaataja, Chief, UNPAN Management Unit[2] (UMU)
Ms. Adriana Alberti, Mr. Daniel Bato, Mr. VyacheslavCherkasov, Ms. ArpineKorekyan,Mr. Richard Kerby, Mr. DenizSusar, Ms. Safiya Al Rashdi, Ms. Victoria Ceban, Mr. George Habib (Intern), Ms. Rizza Huetter, Ms. EleonoraMazzucchi (note-taker)
DSD/UNDESA[3]
Mr. Friedrich Soltau
CEPA[4]Members
Prof. Meredith Edwards, Igor Khalevinskiy,Dr. Allan Rosenbaum, Dr. Pontso Suzan MatumeloSekatle, Dr. NajatZarrouk
CEPA Observers
Mr. Murat Ates, Ms. SrutiBandyophadyayMs. Anita Beneby, Ms. LudmilaGajdosova, Ms. Leanza Elizabeth Gardiner-Keju, Mr. RabiiHajii, Ms. Gay Hamilton, Prof. DrissKettani, Mr. Prenell King-Rolle,Mr. Keith McLean, Dr. Alexander Mirescu, Ms. Carolina Vaira, Ms. Yvette Sands, Mr. George Scott
Other
Ms. Türksel Kaya Bensghir (TODAIE eGovernment Center), Ms. HanumIbrahimova (Permanent Mission of Azerbaijan to the UN) / ECESA Cluster Members for GIB[5]
  • Mr. Patrick Keuleers(Co-Chair), Director a.i., Democratic Governance Group, UN Development Programme (UNDP)
  • Mr. Serge Kapto, Policy Specialist, UNDP
  • Ms. Maria Victoria EspadaTejedor, Expert, UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN-ECLAC)

Follow-up actions:

  • Participants, in particular ECESA-GIB Cluster Members, are encouraged to create blogs on PAConnect, and if they have already done so, to keep them updated and invite user feedback and comments.
  • Participants are to post events related to Governance and Institution Building on PAConnect, so as to keep ECESA-GIB colleagues informed of activities in their agency, as well as create opportunities for inter-agency engagement and coordination.

Highlights of the discussion:

Ms.EliaArmstrongwelcomedall the participants and highlighted that DPADM/DESA is co-chairing the Governance and Institution Building (GIB) cluster of the Executive Committee on Economic and Social Affairs (ECESA) together with UNDP. Ms. Armstrong explained that the GIB cluster is one of the ten thematic clusters of the ECESA, itself a coordination mechanism of various UN entities,in line with the promise of delivering as “one UN”. Ms. Armstrong noted that Mr. Tarik Alami, Director of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN–ESCWA)’s Division on Emerging and Conflict-Related Issues as well as Member of the ECESA-GIB Cluster,sent his regrets at not being able to attend today’s meeting and extended his support to those participating.

Ms. Armstrong introduced the first presenter, Mr. Friedrich Soltau, for the meeting’s opening segment on “United Nations Interagency Policy Coordination on Governance and Public Administration for the Post-2015 Development Agenda”.

Mr. Friedrich Soltaupresented on the Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development, formed after the Rio+20 Summit in 2012 and whose objective is to identify the future Sustainable Development Goals. The Group’s first meeting was in March 2013, after which eight stocktaking meetings have taken place. It is now moving fromthe stocktaking phase into the “consensus-building” phase towards the goals or targets, Mr. Soltau reported. Ten goals are currently in the process of being narrowed down to seven or five. Agreed-up on issues such as health, employment, and the sustainable management of resources are likely to be featured among them. Mr. Soltau concluded that although the Group is still debating whether to tie any of the goals to specific rule of law, governance or institutional themes, there is a unanimous recognition of their importance, especially as a cross-cutting feature that could be mainstreamed across the goals.

During the first Open Discussion phase of the meeting, Mr. Soltau took questions from participants, including on how governments will commit to following through on the goals and on their implementation.

Mr. VyacheslavCherkasovinitiated the meeting’s second segment (on “ECESA Coordination Mechanism of Activities on Governance and Public Administration: Way Forward”) with a presentation on the DMB online platform for public administration specialists, PAConnect. Mr. Cherkasov’s presentation can be seen here.

Mr. DenizSusarbriefed participants on DMB’s Development Account project, “Developing Capacity for e-Participation”. His presentation can be seen here.

Ms. ArpineKorekyanspokeon Open Government Data for Citizen Engagement (OGDCE). Her presentation is available here.

Mr. Keith McLean of the World Bank Institutefollowed with a presentation on “Open Budgeting: How Citizens Can Enhance Value for Money”. The presentation is available here.

Mr. Richard Kerbydelivered a presentation on behalf of EGB entitled, “Technical Cooperation on E-Government”. It can be seen here.

In his capacity as Chief of PACB, Mr. John-Mary Kauzya briefed participants on the annual UN Public Service Awards (UNPSA). Mr. Kauzya said this past year 82 countries submitted hundreds of nominations. He emphasized that the awards did not just serve to recognize public service excellence, but more broadly, that many innovations in public administration and governance practices have been discovered through them. Mr. Kauzya informed that the UNPSA programme is seeking partnerships and looking to improve its outreach efforts. He urged participants to support it.

The second Open Discussion phase featured a wide-ranging and lively dialogue on such topics as promoting the role of women in governance, cooperation with the World Bank on collecting and sharing Open Government Data, UN-ESCWA’s and UN-ECLAC’s initiatives on citizen engagement and e-Government, and open budgeting in Latin America.

Mr. Patrick Keuleers delivered closing remarks at the meeting, briefly touching on UNDP’s work in governance and institution building. Mr. Keuleers highlighted the various partnerships UNDP has forged in this area, including with DESA on corruption prevention e-training in Addis Ababa, with UN Women on women in public administration in post-conflict scenarios, and with the World Bank on rapid needs assessments. Mr. Keuleers added that UNDP would be finalizing a study on gender in public service in May or June of this year.

[1] The meeting is organized by the Division for Public Administration and Development Management of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DPADM/UNDESA).

[2] UNPAN is the UN Public Administration Network.

[3] DSD is the Division for Sustainable Development of UNDESA.

[4] CEPA is the UN Committee of Experts on Public Administration.

[5] For full list of ECESA Cluster members for GIB, please see: