Overview

The effective delivery of responsive, agile, and inclusive public services can often define the strength of a country’s social contract - the trust between people and their state – and social cohesion between individuals, groups, and generations. UNDP provides tools for governments and partners to anticipate, plan, finance, and deliver services and goods in more effective, inclusive, and agile ways. We recognize that the financial and economic factors behind each country’s ability to provide public services and goods are a critical systemic issue, which is why we support governments at every level to address this challenge through ensuring an inclusive legal identity for populations, expanded tax bases, support to financial management, innovative financing and partnerships. Furthermore, UNDP works to enhance inclusion, transparency and efficiency by combating corruption across sectors and through new digital, open, and networked forms of governance. UNDP supports governments to digitally transform their public services, advocating for accessible and co-created digital service solutions built on inclusive digital public infrastructure.

UNDP promotes the adoption of multi-level governance principles, focusing on localization as one of the most effective means of supporting the delivery of public goods and services, particularly for the most vulnerable populations. Collaborative platforms (powered by social innovation and digital tools) will be developed to enhance social cohesion and test new forms of collaboration and investments between people, governments, and the private sector.

Research, data analytics, and supporting countries to report on SDG 16, as led by the Oslo Governance Centre, are critical for evidence-based policy-making and responsive public goods and services. In partnership with national statistics offices and other public and private data providers (private firms, social media, and community-based monitoring, etc.), UNDP works to improve the quality and use of governance data and statistics.