UNPOG organised “Roundtable on Promoting Good Governance” from 11:00 to 13:30 on 4 December 2014, to review UNPOG’s activities during 2014 and to seek advice and insights for its future direction from experts in various fields including government agencies, academia, and international organisations.

The roundtable began with Head of UNPOG, Mr. Jae-hong Lim's opening remarks where he pointed out that the most exciting event of this year was the recognition of excellence of UNPOG by ECOSOC Resolution(E/2014/L.30/Rev.1), for the first time since the inception of the Office. He also highlighted UNPOG’s efforts to integrate and combine its international and national e-government initiatives with those at the local and municipal levels, in cooperation with World E-Governments Organisation of Cities and Local Governments (WeGO), and emphasized the proactive expansion of UNPOG’s activities, in both horizontal and vertical manner.

Supplementing Mr. Lim’s opening remarks, Mr. Keping Yao, Governance and Public Administration Expert of UNPOG, made a presentation on UNPOG’s 2014 activities and 2015 workplan. He described detailed activities in three key areas: E-Government and Collaborative Governance for Sustainable Development; Innovation in Service Delivery; and institutional building and e-leadership.

Most participants were quite impressed by UNPOG’s achievements in 2014 and they encouraged UNPOG to continue its effort to promote good governance through e-government. One of the discussants highly praised UNPOG’s various initiatives such as women's empowerment through ICT, e-government for sustainable development, e-government for disaster risk management and its integration effort of e-government at national and local level, and commented that these topics are very timely and appropriate for sustainable development in developing countries. The other discussant emphasized how important it was now for UNPOG to integrate the activities and set up long-term plan, while another discussant suggested that cultural aspect should also be taken into account in implementing ICT-related projects.