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The 13th meeting of the National Working Group for Monitoring Public Administration Reform in Serbia was held, with the participation of 11 representatives from civil society organisations, the European Policy Centre, and representatives from the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government.

After the introductory remarks and brief introductions of all members, Milica Divljak, a Junior Researcher at the WeBER 3.0 project, presented the results of the national training needs assessment of the National Working Group members. These training sessions will be conducted as part of the WeBER Plus project during the second and third quarters of 2024. The results indicate that the majority of organisations whose representatives filled out the survey assess the overall experience of their organisations in PAR processes with a score of 3. According to the survey, organisations have the least experience in the field of Human Resources Management and the most in the area of Accountability. After presenting the survey results, a discussion followed in which members of the National Working Group shared their observations on the results, as well as their desires and needs for capacity building.

The presented results and collected comments will be used to develop a national training programme to enhance the capacities of organisations in the National Working Group to participate in monitoring the PAR processes.The second session of the meeting focused on discussing the prioritisation of key PAR issues in Serbia. The survey results and voted issues will be used to choose topics to be further explored in the first cycle of policy briefs next year. The topic that received the most votes is the Strategic Framework for PAR implementation (strategy and programmes) and the participation of civil society organisations in monitoring bodies. Following that, the topic that received the most votes is the ever-relevant Transparency in the process of planning and spending public funds, followed by the Inclusiveness of public policy development, which was extensively covered during the WeBER 2.0 project.

Another dialogue with civil society will be initiated during the next year to more precisely define the topics that will be further explored in policy briefs.The meeting concluded with a third session in which Milica Divljak first presented the research findings on the eConsultations portal, and then the participants discussed current issues regarding its usage, as well as potential areas for its improvement.

The 12th meeting of the regional WeBER Platform: regional discussion on the training needs of WeBER Platform members and a discussion on the revision of the methodology for monitoring the mainstreaming of Public Administration principles into sectoral policies was held on 7 December.

The twelfth meeting of the WeBER Platform took place online with the participation of 29 representatives of the regional Platform members. This was the first meeting of the Platform within the WeBER 3.0 project, as well as the first meeting that included new members from the business community – NALED from Serbia and the Chamber of Commerce from North Macedonia.

After the opening remarks and brief introductions of all members, the junior researcher of the WeBER 3.0, Milica Divljak, presented the results of a self-assessment questionnaire on training needs that will be conducted within the WeBER Plus project during the second and third quarters of 2024. The results indicate that the majority of organisations are experienced or very experienced in monitoring public administration reform processes in their countries, especially in the areas of Accountability and Service Delivery. Following the presentation of the questionnaire results, a discussion followed in which WeBER Platform members expressed their desires and needs for capacity building. The presented results, together with collected comments, will be used to develop a training programme to enhance the capacity of the WeBER Platform members to participate in monitoring the public administration reform processes.

The second session of the meeting focused on a discussion of a revised methodology, specifically checklists for monitoring the mainstreaming of Public Administration principles into sectoral policies. The overall monitoring approach and the new checklists were presented by the Lead Researcher of the WeBER 3.0, Miloš Đinđić. “In comparison to the previous pilot research, we decided to simplify the monitoring approach within the WeBER 3.0. The checklist for monitoring Public Financial Management (Budget) will not be used during this research, while the selecting institutions to monitor the mainstreaming of public administration principles will replace the previous selection of sectors. Also, we will only monitor institutions that implement a sectoral policy, meaning institutions such as the Ministry of Finance or the Ministry responsible for public administration will not be the subject of this monitoring”, Đinđić concluded.

The meeting concluded with an open discussion about the issues and challenges faced by organisations that conducted monitoring in the previous cycle, as well as ways to proactively eliminate such issues. Finally, Project Manager Branko Birač briefed participants on the projected timeframe for monitoring implementation, as well as the technical details of the research.

Vienna, 3-4 July 2023 – Under the scope of the Western Balkan Enablers for Reforming Public Administrations – WeBER 3.0 project, a design thinking workshop in Vienna was held. The workshop, organised by the KDZ – Centre for Public Administration Research at the IDM – Institute for Danube Region and Central Europe, saw active participation from 21 attendees representing all six WeBER 3.0 implementing organisations from Western Balkan countries.

This event aimed to foster regional collaboration and knowledge exchange, offering a comprehensive program that included discussions on key topics in public administration reform. The agenda featured sessions on the Common Assessment Framework (CAF), Design Thinking, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and practical insights into participatory public space development through a visit to the Local Agenda 21 representatives which is a local Viennese initiative that offered practical insights into participatory public space development in districts of Vienna.

The CAF session encouraged in-depth discussions and workshops to provide participants with a profound understanding of the assessment framework’s principles and practical applications. Participants actively engaged in the session, applying their knowledge to real-life challenges faced in their respective regions.

The Design Thinking session stood out as a highlight of the workshop, emphasizing creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. Through interactive exercises and group activities, participants learned innovative approaches to addressing complex issues and generating potential solutions to local PAR challenges.

A visit to the Kardinal Nagl Park provided participants with an inspiring experience, witnessing the successful implementation of citizen participation methods in the park’s renovation. This practical example served as a valuable case study, showcasing how citizen engagement can drive effective and sustainable development projects.

The workshop also included a session on the Sustainable Development Goals Checklist for Municipal Development, broadening participants’ perspectives on aligning local projects with global sustainability agendas. The methodology aimed to integrate SDGs as guiding principles, ensuring local PAR initiatives contribute to regional and global development goals.

Throughout the workshop, sessions encouraged interactive group work, facilitating discussions and enabling participants to collaboratively develop a framework for addressing local PAR issues.

Following the workshop in July, the project team embarked on drafting a methodology for solving local PAR issues. The diverse insights, ideas, and collaborative efforts of the workshop participants formed a solid foundation. Workshop notes, discussions, and group work outcomes are now under review to identify key takeaways and common themes that emerged during the interactive sessions. The draft methodology will undergo several iterations with partners and stakeholders before becoming a coherent and practical guide for local organizations.

This visit marked significant steps forward in the WeBER 3.0 project’s mission to enhance public administration reforms in the Western Balkans.

12 April 2023 – Today, an eleventh meeting of the regional WeBER Platform with the goal of discussing the Western Balkans’ civil society monitoring of the EU accession process was held in a hybrid form, online and in Sarajevo.

Milena Lazarević, Programme Director of the European Policy Centre – CEP, and Team Leader of the WeBER 2.0 initiative, opened the meeting by presenting a discussion paper on the revised enlargement methodology and predictability of the EU accession process. In the discussion paper, she pointed out that CSOs have called for more consistent and evidence-based monitoring and assessment to improve the credibility of the enlargement policy and reform processes.

Also, she spoke about the problem of inconsistency in the analysis of different policy aspects from one country’s report to another, which is why the reports are not comparable. A remedy to this problem was offered, such as CSOs performing monitoring of reforms in different areas assessed by the European Commission (EC), and by using third-party indicators based on the regional and national monitoring methodologies (The WeBER PAR Monitor, Monitoring of PAR at the local level – PratimJA initiative).

“Remedy to this problem is relying on the work of CSO and using third-party indicators based on regional or international monitoring methodologies particularly valuable for EC’s annual reporting. “

After the presentation of the discussion paper, examples of civil society’s monitoring reforms were discussed. Anja Basilkova Antovska and Uroš Jovanović from Civic Initiative presented examples. One of them was the establishment of the Council for Cooperation and Development of Civil Society in February this year.

“Establishing this Council for cooperation was very significant to improve CSO-Government relations and creating a stimulating environment for the development of Civil Society. “

Danijela Radošević, Programme Manager at National coalition for Decentralisation (NCD) presented the Civil Society Organisation Sustainability Index, which follows the sustainability of each country’s CSO sector annually. Index has seven dimensions. Some of them are legal environment, advocacy, and service provision. The report analyses 74 countries, and NCD has been creating country reports for Serbia since 2010. She emphasised that Serbia’s overall CSO sustainability rate is 4.3 on a scale from 1 to 7.

Later on, we started a fruitful discussion about the key issues that CSOs saw in the EC’s assessment reports and how they could be solved. In the discussion, Klas Klaas, Regional Manager EU Enlargement from SIGMA gave a meaningful contribution by explaining how SIGMA deals with measuring diffuse areas as public administration reform and why is SIGMA changing the scoring, shifting to percentages when it comes to the quantifying of this area. The whole meeting was moderated by Simona Kacarska, Director at European Policy Institute (EPI) in Skopje.

Daniela Mineva, Senior Analyst from the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) presented CSD’s research on the problem of corruption and state capture by portraying meaningful insights about discrepancies in the analysis of how regular employees and management see the issue of corruption in Bulgarian Border Police. Ms Mineva explained the problem of perception about corruption, saying that regular employees are more willing to see and react to the issue of corruption than management.

At the end of the constructive discussion and the meeting Jovana Knežević, Senior Project Manager at CEP and WeBER 2.0 Project Manager, announced the regional survey for assessing the training needs of CSOs in the PAR area.

The discussion throughout the meeting was accompanied by live polls for the participants to get insights at the moment about the topics of the meeting.

This meeting was supported by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), one of the donors of the WeBER2.0 initiative.