2013 is deemed to fade away. I would say no. The environment has become too turbulent, and the states’ resources too fragile for avoiding rethinking its working habits, for reinventing itself in order to adequately offer services to the population; in other words: for innovating. Also the more horizontal nature of the social challenges triggers public administrations to develop coordinated answers which didn’t exist in the past. John-Mary Kauzya: An innovation is a creative idea that is successfully implemented to address a public problem. Conceiving and implementing a new or better way of performing work and achieving results is innovation. In the public sector innovation refers to new and/or better services, products policies, approaches, processes, institutional arrangements, organisational structures, or even new and better concept. It can be a new response to a new problem or a new response to an old problem. However, there are cases where public sector innovators have dug deep in the traditional practices of the past and remodelled these to address current and even future problems. An example in point is the Ubudehe in Rwanda that won the United Nations Public Service Awards in 2008. The Ubudehe initiative aimed at empowering people to alleviate poverty through participatory decision-making. Ubudehe refers to the Rwandan culture of mutual assistance and conviviality whereby people would come together to address problems facing them so as to work for their development. In a remote past, Rwandan people resorted to Ubudehe mainly in agricultural and house building activities, as these were the main activities of the time.
individual organism used to request the citizen to fill in forms to communicate an address change. Moreover, the significant autonomy granted to many of these public organizations has not contributed to their coordination. These services are organized according to an administrative perspective, not a service delivery one. Modern technologies have made easier for citizens to communicate an address change to many public organizations. The innovation through technology has allowed simplifying the collection of data that has become more complex. John-Mary Kauzya: Through the United Nations Public Service Awards Program which has been running under my supervision since the year 2003, we have come across many cutting-edge innovations in the public sector dispelling the commonly held view that public sector institutions are not creative, not innovative and highly resistant to change. One example of innovation I could mention here is the “Citizen Assistance Service Centres” (SACs) in Bahia, Brazil. The SACs bring together federal, state, and municipal agencies in a single location – placed in locations convenient to the public including shopping malls and major transportation hubs – to offer multiple government services. The concept and practice of the one-stop-shop delivery of public services has been successfully adapted by a number of developed as well as developing countries including Portugal, South Africa, and Mozambique. It is a very good example of successful innovative way of integrating service delivery.
What is the added value of innovation in the public sector? Could you give us an example of an innovative practice in the public sector? Luc Bernier: The service of address change is one straightforward example. Many public sector organizations need to know citizens’ addresses: the services for tax, health insurance, number plate, driving licence, but also the electoral, social or education services, etc… Each
Luc Bernier: Ideally, innovation allows doing more with less, freeing up rare resources to invest in more urgent needs and facilitate the life of citizens, associations or businesses. Innovating can lead to reallocate human resources to tasks with a higher added value, or simply allow providing better public services.
annual report 2013
5