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  2. Blog on SDG16

Blog on SDG16

Lebanon case study: Advancing the fiscal transparency agenda

Lebanon’s recent crisis has shed light on the lack of transparency, weak fiscal discipline, and poor financial reporting and oversight that have pushed the country’s score to the bottom of the Open Budget Survey (6/100 in 2019 and 9/100 in 2021) where it stands below the regional average of countries of the Middle East and North Africa. Data on public spending is available ad-hoc, in non-searchable formats and hardly allows to make year-to-year comparisons or follow trends. Public participation… Read More

Budget credibility in times of crisis: Principle versus reality

At a time of crisis budget credibility becomes a very complex issue, especially as acute crisis normally has non-predictable impacts on government revenues and spending, which significantly influences the realization of planned figures. Changes in budgets are inevitable but should be realized via evidence-based and transparent processes.RealityIn our current world, impacted by multiple crises, such as the hopefully soon ending COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, almost all governments do… Read More

Peace with Nature

There is a growing recognition that climate change and the environment may have a significant influence on conflict and human security, but also that conflicts significantly affect the environment. Climate change certainly affects human livelihoods and security. Impacts may vary according to context and environment, and it is certainly true that climate change can contribute to conflict but is unlikely to be the sole cause. In situations where climate change is a determinant of conflict, it may… Read More

Better Data for SDGs - empowering stakeholders and decision-makers

Halfway through the 2030 Agenda ambition and results of sustainability are still not well aligned. Calls for accelerating its implementation focus frequently on greater financial resources. But what about the backbone of sound policy-making, data and evidence? Do we really know where we stand today? Do we really know where we need to go to get there?There was a sharp awareness of the critical role of data for a successful implementation of the SDGs, when they were decided upon in 2015 and work… Read More

Can crisis governance drive out the capacity for complexity governance?

The contribution of the UN Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA) to the 2023 HLPF contains eight topical recommendations. This blog is inspired by the first recommendation, which is about the very dynamic context in which governments currently have to operate and find effective responses to a diversity of challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments in a crisis management mode, and many of them performed relatively well in this respect – but others did not. Meanwhile… Read More

Another take! Times of tectonic shifts and global changes: The public service and the Global South

This week, from 27 to 31 March 2023, the Committee of Experts of Public Administration (CEPA), a subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, meets.  It has been confronted by the realisation that both the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine may have transformed the world as we known it since roughly the start of the century.  Both exposed a gulf between the narratives, perceptions and needs, with lived realities and facts which, though dimly aware, we can… Read More

Connecting the “Silos” of Decision-making

  Agenda 2030In 2015, all of the UN's 193 member countries, after many rounds of negotiations, agreed on a Master plan for the survival of humanity and our planet, entitled “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. It is an extremely ambitious plan with 17 sustainability goals and 169 targets. What this Agenda 2030 provides is a unique, global, national, and local investment plan in three central dimensions of survival – the social, the environmental, and the… Read More

How to incorporate SDGs into national budgeting systems

The report “Emerging issues in public financial management and budgeting for the SDGs” states that “the budgeting for the SDGs as a practice is still in its infancy. Several countries have announced, through voluntary national reviews, the intention to reflect the Goals in budgetary processes but few have specified why it would be relevant to do so or how the practice could be made operational”. For most countries the simplest and potentially fast solution is to re-organise the national… Read More

Guatemala’s supreme audit institution’s work to promote education on good governance in schools…

Supreme audit institutions play a key role in promoting accountability, integrity, transparency and in ensuring the quality of public spending for the benefit of citizens. In recent years, the Office of the  Comptroller General of Accounts of the Republic of Guatemala has developed several programs that aim to promote these values in the national education system. The “Sowing seeds of transparency” program In accordance with the Inter-institutional Cooperation Agreement between the… Read More

Gambling away our future

In our time of multiple, complex and interacting crises – think for a moment about the following three opening sentences: “If all goes well, the history of mankind has only just begun. Mankind is about two hundred thousand years old. But the earth will remain habitable for hundreds of millions of years to come – enough to end disease, poverty, and injustice forever, enough to create heights of flowering that are unthinkable today.”In our time of multiple, complex and interacting crises – think… Read More

Go far, go together

An oft-quoted African proverb says that if you want to go fast, go alone; and If you want to go far, go together. This message of working together in partnership is echoed in the theme of this year’s United Nations Public Service Day, celebrated every year on 23 June, as decided by the UN General Assembly. [1] Taking its lead from the 2022 theme of the United Nations High-level Political Forum (HLPF), which will review progress in achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 17, the 2022 UN… Read More
There is no Planet B

A Hippocratic oath for the coming generations

Climate change is the biggest health challenge in the world today. It poses a steadily increasing direct and indirect threat to future generations. Humans are facing unprecedented challenges, first and foremost related to climate change, nature loss and embedded in this also issues related to health and food security.  The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change claims that ‘climate change is the greatest global health threat facing the world in the 21st century, but it is also the… Read More