A three-day meeting on "Governance, Public Administration and Information & Communication Technologies for Post-2015 Development," brought together experts to discuss how governance, information and communication technologies (ICT), and national public administration can enable development.
The conclusions of the Expert Group Meeting will be captured in a forthcoming outcome document.
5 July 2013: A three-day meeting brought together experts to discuss how governance, information and communication technologies (ICT), and national public administration can enable development. Their proposals, contained in a forthcoming outcome document, are expected to inform the work of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and the post-2015 development agenda discussions on governance and technology.
DESA organized the EGM on “Governance, Public Administration and Information & Communication Technologies for Post-2015 Development” in partnership with the Center for Electronic Governance at UN University International Institute for Software Technology (UNU-IIST), from 3-5 July 2013, in Geneva, Switzerland.
On building government capacities for public administration and ICT, and measuring their effectiveness, experts recognized the key role of these features for creating sustainable and efficient development. Panel presentations allowed experts to present their research on these topics. They discussed evaluation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the building of governance architectures and measurement frameworks for development, and the way forward with the post-2015 development agenda. Participants considered whether to propose a stand-alone goal on governance, governance targets through-out all other goals, or overriding principles of governance for the whole agenda.
On the subject of public administration, many experts agreed on the need to make bureaucracies more effective. Partnerships and networks between a variety of actors, as well as governments that recognize their limitations, were stressed as important for the creation of new paradigms of governance. The cultivation and evaluation of leaders and policy-making also was discussed. On ICT, experts stressed the importance of using these technologies to solve new problems. The development of e-governance, big data structures, and more open government were said to be important for empowering civil servants and public citizens.
Experts spent the last day of the meeting discussing specific proposals for governance in the post-2015 development agenda. [EGM Aide-Memoire] [EGM Programme] [IISD RS Sources]