Government Experience Exchange Programme

UNDP South-South|Galaxy Knowledge Hub

Government Experience Exchange Programme

Promoting UAE’s position as a global hub for government management and development

Challenges

Many developing countries face challenges interconnected challenges that significantly hinder progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions) and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals). Weak institutional capacity, characterized by limited technical expertise and outdated administrative systems, undermines effective governance. Slow digital transformation prevents governments from leveraging technology for improved service delivery and operational efficiency, widening the gap between citizen expectations and government capabilities.

Inefficient governance structures create systemic bottlenecks in decision-making, resource allocation, and policy implementation. Fragmented approaches to modernization persist as countries lack access to proven governance models and practical implementation frameworks. The absence of robust knowledge-sharing mechanisms means valuable lessons and innovations remain isolated, preventing mutual learning. Limited capacity-building opportunities further compound these issues, as government officials lack exposure to cutting-edge practices and modern leadership approaches necessary for sustainable institutional transformation and achieving global development commitments.

Toward a Solution

GEEP employs a multi-faceted knowledge-sharing and capacity-building methodology structured around multiple streams. The UAE engages in experience exchanges with various countries across several streams, including the following areas:

• Government services – The UAE Government’s initiatives in government services are represented through two main pillars: The Capacity Building Programme and the Government Mobile Application Award.

• Government excellence – This stream focuses on spreading a culture of quality and excellence among the representatives of government entities and developing an excellence model tailored to the partner country.

• Government accelerators – Serving as a platform to address challenges and achieve ambitious goals over short periods, this stream emphasises accelerated results, increased collaboration and innovation, and promoting integration between the public and private sectors.

• Government performance – This stream establishes a government performance framework that enables participating countries to enrich their performance management experience, review, and develop and refine their national plan to achieve their vision.

• Government innovation – It aims to stimulate and enrich the culture of innovation within the government sector through the development of an integrated innovation framework.

• Competiveness and statistics – This stream focuses on sharing the UAE’s experience in managing and monitoring global competitiveness reports and its best practices in global competitiveness. Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre plays a significant role in enhancing the country’s global reputation and improving performance in the areas of global competitiveness, statistics and data.

• Leadership and capacity building – This stream aims to create change agents within the government, empowering them to engage, lead, innovate and contribute to their nation’s success.

• Government human resources – This stream focuses on setting HR systems, policies and legislations to manage the human capital effectively in the government sector.

• Programming – The One Million Arab Coders initiative aims to empower the Arab youth with the language of the future, preparing the next generation of technology experts and creating new job opportunities in the region. The initiative has established successful partnerships with different governments.

• Startups and entrepreneurship – Area 2071 in the UAE offers an innovation ecosystem that brings together talented people, government officials, private sector cadres and other great minds to collaborate in designing and testing innovative solutions.

Each stream is designed to transfer specific UAE best practices while remaining adaptable to partner countries’ unique contexts and needs. GEEP employs a knowledge-sharing and capacity-building approach, organizing workshops, training, and expert exchanges to transfer best practices. By leveraging both national competencies and global expertise, it accelerates SDG achievement through collaborative learning and innovation.

The program fosters active collaboration among governments, experts, and institutions. Partners co-design training sessions and jointly develop solutions, ensuring the initiative reflects diverse needs and experiences and promotes shared ownership.GEEP facilitates South-South and triangular cooperation by connecting over 50 countries and 6 international organizations, enabling direct transfer of government practices and knowledge to tackle common development challenges collectively, which individual countries struggle to solve alone.

To date, GEEP has trained over 10 million participants via 2,500+ workshops and 34.2 million training hours, engaging 150+ experts and 65 UAE entities. It now includes 50 countries and 6 international organizations. Cooperation focuses on government development, leadership, services, capacity building, and digital ransformation to accelerate sustainable development worldwide. These results demonstrate measurable capacity enhancement and improved governance aligned with SDG targets..

The program’s innovation lies in its unified global model combining UAE’s best practices with international expertise, empowering governments to implement tailored solutions that enhance administrative efficiency and responsiveness, thus improving their competitive advantage in governance and service delivery. The multi-stream approach allows for customization based on each country’s specific needs and priorities, while the focus on government accelerators represents a shift from traditional capacity building to agile, results-oriented transformation.

GEEP’s sustainability is ensured through ongoing partnerships, institutional integration, and alignment with global agendas. It has influenced policy reforms, fostered regional cooperation, and established a scalable model likely to deliver long-term impact.

The program’s framework is highly adaptable, allowing replication in various countries facing similar governance challenges. Success depends on political will, institutional capacity, and commitment to partnership, making it scalable across diverse contexts.

Key lessons include the importance of strong partnerships, tailored knowledge exchange, continuous capacity building, and leveraging digital platforms to enhance accessibility and impact. Flexibility and local ownership have been crucial for the initiative’s success.

CONTACT INFORMATION
Afra Ahmad Almarri, Research Analyst, Government Experience Exchange Office

SDG
17 - Partnerships for the Goals

COUNTRIES INVOLVED
United Arab Emirates

SUPPORTED BY
Government Experience Exchange Office

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