Public Service resilience and humanness Delivering services during

Public Service resilience and humanness: Delivering services during hard times: Presentation for the IIAS Conference in Tunis 25 -29 June 2018 Dr. John-Mary Kauzya (Ph. D) Chief of Public Administration Capacity Branch (PACB) Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM) Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) United Nations Headquarters New York Kauzya@un. org www. publicadministration. un. org

Plan of the presentation 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Introduction On resilience On humanness in public service delivery Public governance & administration is critical to resilience Leadership for resilience Principles and values inbuilt in the 2030 Agenda Resilience is critical for urban sustainable development Conclusion: The problematic of developing resilience and humanness in the Public Service

• • • Crises from a variety of sources (political, economic, social, environmental, financial etc) are becoming common occurrences making it imperative that managing crises and being resilient become a key competence in public governance and administration. The paradigm of words : uncertainties, crises, challenges, rapid change, vulnerabilities, terrorism, extremism, harmful environment, global warming, climate change, risks, temporary technological failure, cyber-attacks, energy insecurity, instability of financial markets etc. . Increasing levels of exposure of populations to conditions described by such paradigms partly explains why resilience is becoming a common future in the discussion on socio-politicoeconomic and ecological change and sustainable development and why a society’s resilience is critical for it to survive and thrive. “We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path”, it is increasingly becoming a value in the development of societies what could make the Public Service resilient and what motivates public servants to persevere remain resilient and deliver services even in extreme hardship. We will first give our understanding of resilience and its importance in sustainable development

• • “In the traditional sense, resilience is a measure of how well a system—an organization or institution, an ecosystem, a city or region, or indeed a whole country—recovers from an unexpected shock or disaster Larger and more important meaning of cultivating the assets, culture, and capabilities that render systems less vulnerable to risk, more agile and adaptable, and therefore better prepared for successive waves of change and disruption. It means not only bouncing back, but also bouncing forward”. ( Albert Cho Simon Willis e al, August 2011). public servants continue to strive and serve even in hostile circumstances where it would be understandable to keep low and just save one’s skin so to speak In all this obviously negative paradigm, in daily life one witnesses “heroic” behavior and actions of Public Servants which illustrate resilience in behavior and calls for an explanation as to why

• On Humanness in Public Service Delivery • We just picked the following from a discussion thread on the internet concerning humanness. • “Today a person, while crossing the road near Mumbai, was run over by a car and got severely injured. When the car hit him, he fell on the ground and started moaning with pain. A youngster came along and started making video of the injured person. An old person was standing nearby. Seeing all this, he said to himself: Humanness has died out. (=People nowadays don't care for others' sufferings/hardships; they just care for themselves. They have become heartless; they don't have any feelings for their fellow human beings. So, they're no longer "true" humans - humanness has died out. ). ” • Understood as deep concern for the wellbeing of human kind or people around us or people we serve underpins our humanness which directly impacts the public service ethos. /

Public Governance and administration is critical in resilience • • Public Governance, Administration and Public service in any country, through laws, rules, regulations, policies, strategies, and practices harness opportunities to lead to innovations, and transformation for a better future. It is important that governments, working together with local level communities in their societies, develop and institutionalise mechanisms that develop and sustain a resilient society capable of, not only absorbing shocks and bouncing back to build better and more durable national survival and thriving governance and public administration institutions and society, but most importantly also to innovate, foresee, and prevent any drastic, rapid, or gradual negative changes that would pose a threat to the society.

Model of a Public Sector leadership mindset embodied with humanness Leverage Community potential for transformation and sustained development Engage all actors and secure their support, commitment, energies, resources & action Align development plans with national, regional, and global development goals Develop competences at community, political, managerial, administrative and technical Ensure mobilisation and frugal utilisation of both internal and external resources Rely on local capabilities to ensure creativity and innovation, resilience State achievements and shortfalls using the two to sustain and improve performance Harness an ideology that puts people at the centre of all policies, plans and actions Instil values of professionalism, transparency, accountability, integrity and ethical condu Pursue a vision for the future generations built on the achievements of today.

Resilience is critical for urban sustainable development • One of the most important changes rocking the world is rapid urbanisation. And if there is any place that needs to build resilience it is the cities all over the world. “… it will be under the auspices of cities where we will succeed or fail in achieving our goals of poverty eradication, equality, climate change reduction, and ensuring healthy lives. It will be the cities that determine if we achieve inclusive economic growth or yield to greater inequality. It is in cities where people will seek opportunities for higher education and employment. And, it will be cities that determine if we will continue our steadily increasing usage of the world’s resources or if we can realize a more sustainable path. This is why sustainable development goal (SDG) 11, “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”, is so important. Success in achieving the targets under SDG 11 sets the stage for achieving targets in many of the other SDG goals”. • It is important that cities and local level communities develop resilience in order to sustain the pursuit of sustainable development because in the process they will have to withstand overcome numerous and various challenges. Adopting and adapting the use of information and communication technologies in cities will be a strong and effective contributive factor to resilience and in sustainable development in cities.

Conclusion: The problematic of developing resilience and humanness in the Public Service the problematic for those who are involved in the development of the capacities of Public servants becomes complicated especially because changing (let alone developing) the mindset is a complicated undertaking. Public Administration school, Management Development Institutes and managers of human resources in public sector institutions including the Public Service must engage in a resilient search for new approaches, methodologies and techniques that will ensure developing mindsets that are appropriate for achieving the SDGs. Knowledge and skills have always been relatively easier to develop. Mindset not so obvious

The mindset that will ensure the wellbeing of all the people will be driven by care for all the people (humanness), including the generations of the future, a propensity for integration and belief in collective action and impact, a sense of equity and concern for the poor and vulnerable, resilience, concern for the common good, and persistence in the search of new solutions to new problems, a drive for creativity and innovation, self-reliance and belief in people power to determine the quality of their lives, professionalism, respect for ethics and integrity and an acute dislike for corruption in the public sector. How to develop such mentality among public servants is a big task. But it must be done. Thank You