by Patrick Duong, Global Lead, Governance for Public Goods and Services and Chief Strategy and Partnerships, FutureGov, Bureau for Policy and Programme Support, UNDP
Development debates still focus on what is visible: jobs, growth, education, health services.
Yet these outcomes depend on something equally important, though often less visible: governance and the public sector that makes delivery possible.
As UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo recently observed, governance is a core foundation of development. Public institutions are the machinery. Together, they turn policy into results and ambition into tangible improvements in people’s lives. Without them, progress is fragile.
PRESSURE ON THE SYSTEM
Today, that system is under strain. Governments face rising demands, tighter fiscal space, and declining trust. Across OECD countries, only 39% report high or moderately high trust in government, while 44% report low or no trust.
At the same time, development finance is shifting. ODA remains essential—especially in fragile contexts—but it is no longer the primary driver. Growth increasingly depends on investment, domestic revenues, and access to capital.
WHERE GOVERNANCE MEETS INVESTMENT
This shift places governance and public sector performance at the center.
Investment depends on an enabling environment shaped by capable institutions, effective public administration, and the ability of the state to provide predictability, credibility, and confidence. Stronger governance and public sector capability can help create the conditions for investment, growth, and better development outcomes.
DELIVERING AT SCALE
Public sector performance determines whether policies reach people. In times of crisis, this becomes decisive. Governments able to coordinate, adapt, and sustain service delivery are better equipped to protect both livelihoods and trust.
More broadly, countries with stronger public sector capability are often better able to deliver services efficiently, adopt innovation, and sustain reform over time.
COLLABORATION FOR PUBLIC SECTOR TRANSFORMATION
The central challenge for many countries is not simply implementation, but how to sustain public sector transformation over time—across institutions, reform priorities and increasingly complex governance environments.
Addressing this challenge increasingly requires more coordinated and connected approaches to reform. Governance reforms are no longer confined within institutions or countries—they depend on alignment across actors, institutions and sources of support, as well as collective action across systems.
This is at the core of UNDP’s Governance for Public Goods and Services (GPGS) approach: strengthening institutions while supporting country-led reform efforts and helping align partnerships around broader public sector transformation priorities. Through initiatives such as FutureGov, UNDP—together with the OECD, the World Bank, the IMF, and UN DESA—helps bridge policy, finance, and implementation, linking global standards with country-level delivery.
Such collaboration is not an add-on. It is becoming a capability in its own right—essential to building public sectors that can learn, adapt, and deliver in an increasingly complex environment.
GOVERNANCE AS FOUNDATION
As ODA increasingly aims to mobilize and de-risk investment, its effectiveness will depend on governance and public sector capability. Financing alone is not enough—it must be matched by institutions that can deliver.
Governance and the public sector are not side issues. They are foundational.
THE BOTTOM LINE FOR DEVELOPMENT
When governance works, development delivers. When it does not, even the best policies fall short.
Getting governance right—and strengthening the public sector behind it—is not just an institutional priority.
It is what makes development possible.
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