Project on Fiscal Implications of Structural Reforms Officially Launched
We are very pleased to share that we are officially starting a three-year multi-beneficiary capacity development project Fiscal Implications of Structural Reforms (FISR) funded by the European Union. The project is primarily aimed at supporting public officials mainly from line ministries in sound and consistent assessment of the fiscal implications of structural reforms. It is focused on the EU candidate and potential candidate countries in the Western Balkans and Turkey.
The FISR project will via peer-to-peer, participatory CEF learning initiatives delivered for officials of line ministries, involving also officials of ministries of finance and the Economic Reform Programs (ERPs) Coordinators, support:
- strengthening analytical and costing skills of public officials,
- coordination inside and between governmental institutions,
- enhancing regional cooperation.
Natasha Ilijeva Acevska, manager of the project explained: “The implementation of structural reforms, as part of the ERP, often faces challenges in prioritization of sound reforms, calculation of costs and securing budget for implementation. The project will enable participants to understand and address these challenges. To ensure relevance and consistency of the knowledge and maintain the focus on the most important aspects of the fiscal planning of structural reforms, CEF experts have defined five “knowledge sections” and their objectives that serve as umbrellas of knowledge to be shared in the learning initiatives: 1. strengthening costing capacity, 2. enhance budgeting, 3. enabling environment for policy design and implementation, 4. increasing the transparency of costs, 5. improving quality of documents.”
Learning initiatives delivered in a participatory way and with learner in the hearth of the learning process will be delivered face-to-face in the CEF premises in Ljubljana and in a number of regional workshops and online on the CEF learning Campus. Line ministries portal, an online platform was also designed to facilitate knowledge and experience exchange among public officials in addition to the learning initiatives.
The contract for the delivery of the project was signed by Jana Repanšek, CEF Director and Barbara Banki Gardinal, Head of Unit А.3 Economic Governance and IFIs, Public Administration Reform at European Commission Directorate-General for Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR). CEF is the project design and implementing partner and EU is the project funding partner. Jana Repanšek said on the occasion: “We are very pleased and honored that the EU has entrusted us the implementation of the project that will importantly contribute to the advancement of the public finance reform efforts in the CEF constituency countries. The project is continuation of our long-term partnership with the EU and we wish that it will continue to grow.”