United Nations 2024 Public Service Awards

The United Nations Public Service Awards is a prestigious international recognition of excellence in public service. It rewards the creative achievements and contributions of public service institutions that lead to a more effective and responsive public administration in countries worldwide. Through an annual competition, the UN Public Service Awards promotes the role, professionalism and visibility of public service.

The UN Public Service Day intends to celebrate the value and virtue of public service to the community; highlight the contribution of public service in the development process; recognize the work of public servants, and encourage young people to pursue careers in the public sector. Since the first Awards Ceremony in 2003, the United Nations has received an increasing number of submissions from all around the world.

2024 United Nations Public Service Awards

The 2024 United Nations Public Service Awards (UNPSA) applications are now open.

Nominations for the 2024 UNPSA are invited in three categories:

1. Category on Innovation in Public Institutions: Delivering inclusive and equitable services requires public sector institutions to be creative, flexible, and resilient. Institutions need to create enabling environment for innovation, having appropriate policies and resources in place and take measured risks. They will have to be creative in addressing the complex and interrelated challenges of the SDGs to make sure no one is left behind.
2. Category on Gender-Responsive Public Services: Gender-responsive public services play a critical role in reducing inequality and advancing the rights of women and girls. While public services have improved to provide more targeted services to different demographics, innovation is not inherently inclusive and more can be done to empower women and girls as they continue to be under-represented and underserved. It is important to garner the active participation of women and girls in all stages of planning, budgeting, implementation, monitoring and evaluation so they are not only the recipients of services but also co-creators and contributors to solutions.
3. Special Category on Tackling Climate Change: Urgent action is needed to combat climate change and its impacts. Extreme weather patterns are more frequent and intense droughts, storms and heat waves will make more places on Earth uninhabitable. It is threatening biodiversity. Many Small Island Developing States (SIDS) already face an existential crisis with rising sea levels. Other impacts of climate change – from having clean water and air, stable food supply, deforestation, desertification, and displacement – will affect us all but the most vulnerable segment of the population will be disproportionately hurt. It is a global challenge that requires concerted efforts to mitigate the negative effects and make society more resilient.

• Table of Content
• About United Nations
• UN Public Service Awards
• Requirements for UN Public Service Awards Qualification
• Application Deadline
• How to Apply

About United Nations

The English language component of the Indigenous Fellowship Programme (IFP) was established in 1997. It takes place at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva, Switzerland and lasts for 4 weeks, usually coinciding with the annual meeting of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP). The objective of this training programme is to enhance the knowledge of indigenous peoples on existing international human rights instruments and mechanisms, so they can use them to more effectively advocate for the rights of their communities ...... continue reading

UN Public Service Awards

Requirements for UN Public Service Awards Qualification

The UNPSA will continue to be open to all public sector institutions at the national, sub-national and local levels from all UN member states. In the case of partnerships, the application must include the public sector institution.

There is no personal nomination or recognition.

The initiative must be relevant to one of the categories The initiative must have been implemented for a minimum of two years2, except for the special category which will be specified, if different.

To avoid conflict of interest, the initiative must not be implemented by the United Nations System.

Application Deadline

How to Apply

Application preview in PDF are available in the links below.

Arabic  |  Chinese  |  English |  French |  Russian |  Spanish 

Please review the submission guidelines before you begin the application available in the links below.

Arabic  |  Chinese  |  English |  French |  Russian |  Spanish 

2024 UNPSA application forms are available in the links below.

Arabic  |  Chinese  |  English |  French |  Russian |  Spanish 

Applications MUST be completed before 16 October 2023.

For more details visit: UN website.