Knowledge Sharing on Costing of Structural Reforms: ERP for the period of 2020-2022 (Serbia)

Nov 26 – 27, 2019 Serbia No Fee
Nov 13, 2019
English

This event will be delivered as continuation of the CEF’s support to the European Union candidate and potential candidate countries in preparation of their Economic Reform Programmes (ERP) for the 2020 – 2022 period. In particular, it is aimed at building capacities of line ministries to do the estimation of implementation costs and financing resources of draft structural reform policy measures. As a result, this event will contribute to coordinated, fiscally-sustainable and timely implementation of structural reforms to be included into the 2020 – 2022 ERP.

About this event

Spread across eight policy areas and to be implemented over a three-year period, structural reform measures included in the ERPs are set to tackle the most important structural obstacles to competitiveness and inclusive growth of a country. As an important prerequisite for ensuring their successful implementation, not only that each of the measures has to be well-defined and sequenced, but they also need to be realistically and consistently costed, while the funding for their implementation needs to be secured in the medium-term budget process.   

Taking this into account, this event will provide guidance for officials working on preparation of structural reform measures on how to practically use the Methodological Guidance for Costing of Structural Reforms (Costing Guidance; Serbian language version HERE) to ensure adequate estimation of their implementation costs and their presentation in the ERP. It will complement the European Commission‘s Guidance for the ERP 2020-2022, while answering the specific learning needs identified in Serbia.

The overall objective of this event is to strengthen the skills needed for assessment of fiscal implications of structural reforms, which is expected to result in more realistic cost estimates and reduced delays in their implementation.

More precisely, at this two-day event, the officials from line ministries and the Ministry of Finance will appraise the compliance of already drafted costs of structural reforms with the Costing Guidance, to make needed improvements and/or clarifications which will ensure their readiness for inclusion into the 2020 - 2022 ERP. While taking a problem-solving and participatory approach, the focus of this event will be on the assessment of costs and funding sources of the draft structural reforms from all eight policy areas, while the drafted descriptions of structural reforms will be reviewed only from the perspective of providing sufficient information for doing proper costing.

This event builds on the knowledge shared and lessons learned during the introductory event delivered earlier this year in Serbia and continues efforts aimed at building institutional capacities for applying the Costing Guidance. It will be organized at a location away from officials’ daily business operations to stimulate coordination and team work between actors relevant to the ERP preparation process.

This event is implemented as part of the CEF’s regional project “Strengthening Line Ministries’ Capacities to Assess Fiscal Implications of Structural Reforms”.

What will you learn?

This event will be highly participatory and oriented towards practical implementation of the Costing Guidance to structural reforms to be included in the next ERP. By attending this event, the participants will have a possibility to appraise the drafted costs of their institutions’ structural reforms, while getting assistance and advice on prospects for overcoming the main costing challenges.  

In particular, upon the completion of this training, participants will be able to:

  • Appraise benefits and determine methods for integrating structural reforms outlined in the ERP into the country’s budget preparation process and medium-term fiscal framework
  • Examine elements of the European Commission‘s Guidance for the ERP 2020-2022 relevant to costing of structural reforms and their financing
  • Understand the principles of Methodological Guidance for Costing of Structural Reforms and how to practically implement it in preparation of inputs for the ERP
    • Clarify differences in concepts of „additional costs“ and „base year“
    • Distinguish  ,,direct“ and „indirect/secondary“ cost implications
    • Categorize different types of expenditures (e.g. subsidies for investments, earmarked transfers to local governments)
    • Realistically plan funding sources and their availability (e.g. sector budget support sources conditioned on performance)
    • Minimize the use of „to be determined“ funding sources
  • Assess how to streamline the process of cooperation and information exchange between line ministries, the Ministry of Finance Budget Department, and the ERP Coordinator.

Who should attend?

Invited to participate are the officials involved in the design, costing and budgeting of structural reforms outlined in the ERP, which include: 

  • National ERP Coordinator and Coordinator for the ERP Chapter 5 on Structural Reforms
  • Members of the working group for the ERP preparation
  • Officials working at finance and policy departments of line ministries
  • Officials working at the budget department of ministry of finance
  • Policy planning experts from the government’s policy coordination body and/or Prime Ministers’ office.

Since this event builds upon the introductory course organized on July 3 in Belgrade, participants who attended the earlier event will be considered first in the selection.

Lecturers

Mojmir Mrak- Jean Monnet Professor at the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Mr Mojmir Mrak has more than 20 years of experience in designing and implementing the Slovenian government’s policy in international finance and EU accession. At the CEF, Mr. Mrak lectures and delivers workshops on Instruments for Pre-Accession Assistance. He also facilitated discussions on the inclusion of structural reforms and policy coordination of medium-term fiscal and economic planning for the CEF’s Building Capacities in Policy Design and Implementation (BCPDI) program. Within the BCPDI, he was an advisor for the EU funded Strategic Planning and Budgeting project; for the Fiscal Impact Assessment of Structural Reforms project, he chaired a working group and co-edited the project’s final publication.

Marko Malović- Professor of International Finance and Economic Theory at the Faculty of Business Economics, Educons University, Novi Sad and NCEU Coordinator for ERP

Prof. Marko Malovic, PhD, is the Dean of the Faculty of Business Economics, Novi Sad and Euromoney’s Country Risk Expert, and has lectured at handful of state-owned and private universities in Serbia and elsewhere in the Balkans region over the past 20 years. He has been visiting fellow, lecturer or PhD student at seven universities in USA, UK, Germany, Italy and Poland. He has taken part in numerous conferences and seminars in Serbia and overseas. Prof. Malovic has consulted for the Serbian Government, European Agency for Reconstruction, for the UN, National Bank of Yugoslavia, National Bank of Serbia, etc. His expertise encompasses International Finance and Open-Economy Macroeconomics, European Economic Integration and Global Banking.

Practical information

The event will take place in Vrdnik on November 26-27, 2019. It will be delivered in Serbian language.

The CEF will cover the costs of transport, accommodation and meals for up to 42 selected participants. Participation at this event is by invitation only.

Applications need to be submitted no later than November 15, 2019 at this online application form. Selected candidates will receive the confirmations by November 19, 2019.

For more information please contact:

Partners

This learning initiative was supported by:

Funded by the European Union