The Principles of Public Administration are a comprehensive framework of standards expressing values and behaviours that citizens and businesses expect from a modern public administration. They were designed to guide the European Union (EU) enlargement and neighbourhood administrations in their reform efforts to address the shortcomings in their public administrations and meet the EU requirements on one of the 'fundamentals' of the accession process.

The Principles were developed by SIGMA, a joint initiative of the EU and the OECD, principally financed by the EU, at the request of the European Commission (EC). The Principles build on existing EU acquis, OECD legal instruments, other international standards, as well as good practices of the EU and OECD countries.

For the OECD, the Principles constitute an instrument for dissemination of the OECD standards of good public governance and for increasing the impact of the Organisation in the administrations where SIGMA works. Politicians and public servants from other transition countries can also use the framework as a tool for continuous improvement of public administration systems and as guidance to enhance the capacity of their public administration to develop better policies for better lives, provide high-quality and user-centred services, and manage public funds efficiently, as well as in their efforts to foster transparency and accountability and build citizens’ trust in public institutions.