Objectives;
Situation Analysis;
Strategy;
(Expected) Results / Outcome;
Major activities |
Situation analysis: The progress made in establishing functioning public institutions is uneven across Eastern Europe and the CIS. EU accession has been a powerful anchor for state reforms in Central Europe, which have resulted in better public services delivered by a more responsive, accountable and transparent public administration. While the prospect of EU membership offered to Western Balkan countries is a strong incentive for upgrading their public sector, these countries still face significant challenges due to weak state structures and systems of public administration. The European Neighborhood Policy targeted at Western CIS and the Caucasus has so far fallen short of offering a realistic prospect for membership and, partly because of this, has had less of a pull effect for public administration reform. In Central Asian countries there appears to be limited political momentum for broad-based democratic and state reforms at present. However, punctual administrative modernization efforts are pursued with a view to achieving improvements in specific policy areas. The fragmentation of donor approaches and the lack of a unified vision and programming framework for public administration reform interventions in Eastern Europe and the CIS are causes for the limited progress on reforming state structures in countries of the region over the past decade. Anticipated result: - Regional networks of public administration reform practitioners and experts and knowledge infrastructure expanded and consolidated;
- Research, publication and dissemination of a regional public administration reform survey;
- Demand-driven regional public administration reform project formulated and a regional facility established to support its implementation.
Current status: The Project has adopted a phased approach. The first phase, inaugurated in July 2006, and subsequently extended, focused on strengthening regional cooperation and information sharing on PAR, laying the foundations for the second phase, that of implementing the demand-driven five-year programme on PAR. It also initiated the consolidation of regional Public Administration Reform programming and knowledge resources by bringing together two professional networks in a structured manner, so that they may progress towards the development of a broad-based, demand-driven, regional public sector reform programme for the next five years. The progress was made in developing an institutional framework for regional cooperation in promoting homegrown solutions in public service reform. Project is currently in the transition stage; active preparations for the set-up of the second phase are ongoing. A project outline for the next five years has been developed and agreed with the donor. The full-fledged project document for the second phase has been developed in consultation with the network members and based on the results of the regional PAR survey conducted in 2007. Project document got an approval of LPAC. Establishment of the Project Office and recruitment of the project staff are currently ongoing. Set-up of key project bodies (Advisory Board, Steering Committe, Network of National Coordinators and Focal Points) is close to completion. An interactive web-based platform to support the joint network has been developed, and the project website is fully operational. Framework and documentation for future project activities is being finalised (such as development of multi-country activities guidelines, proposal submission cycle, templates of documents etc.) Projects: 53224, 53225, 53226 |
