Archive of Czech -UNDP Trust Fund' activities

Local governance: Czech Union of Towns and Municipalities shares best practices with Moldovan counterparts

PRAGUE, Czech Republic –12-16 December 2011 – Representatives of the Moldovan Congress of Local Municipalities (CALM), municipalities and state officers visited the Czech Republic to learn about how to reinforce the institutional, functional and organizational capacity of CALM. Sharing the Czech experience supports CALM’s efforts to become a full-fledged and equal partner to national institutions during implementation of Moldovan decentralization reforms.

The main stress was given to exchange of knowledge between CALM and its Czech counterpart - Union of Towns and Municipalities. Participants also visited the Czech Parliament, relevant ministries and representative of regional municipalities to discuss their approaches and forms of cooperation with Czech Union of Towns and Municipalities.

The visit helped to establish a partnership between Moldovan and Czech experts. The study tour is followed by series of training organized directly in Moldova and focused on support of CALM members in drafting its platform of participation on the main identified areas of the decentralization reform.

Good Governance: Georgian oversight institution improves human resources management based on Czech best practices

Tbilisi, Prague, June 2010 – December 2011: The Czech Supreme Audit Office (SAO) shared its best practices in the field of human resources management with the Chamber of Control of Georgia (CCG). This activity helped Georgian auditors improve public accountability and public financial management with support of UNDP Georgia and Czech – UNDP Trust Fund. CCG’s staff turnover decreased by 25 % in 2009-2011 period.

The Chamber of Control of Georgia, the institution entitled to oversee operations of the entire public administration, have suffered from an extremely high turnover of staff due to multiple changes of senior management since 2004. Additionally, the human resources policy has not been clearly formulated yet, resulting in frequent staff changes. These conclusions followed from the assessment carried out by the UNDP Country Office in Georgia in mid-2010. According to the report, the CCG employs more than 230 personnel and the staff turnover rate was 33.6% in 2009.

Previously, UNDP Georgia was involved in strengthening oversight capacity of the CCG in 2004-2008 within the framework of “Strengthening Institutional Performance and Capacity for Public Sector Control” project. Georgian partners requested the support of Czech-UNDP Trust Fund to facilitate the adaptation of Czech experience in the fields of human resource management of SAO and institutional development.

During the project implementation period Czech experts helped their Georgian counterparts with elaboration of the short-term Strategy on Human Resource Management (Strategy). The goals of the Strategy are aimed for the years 2011-2012. It contains description of all the required CCG HR activities such as comprehensive job descriptions of CCG staff, assessing job performance, selection process, adaptation process of new staff, etc., as well as a detailed Action Plan. The current CCG HR Strategy ensures coherency of HR activities with modern and comprehensive system of human resource management. The Strategy corresponds to the current international best practice, knowledge and trends in the field of human resource management and together with all these aspects it reflects recent experience of SAO with implementation of such strategy in the Czech Republic. At the same time the Strategy is suitably adapted to the needs of CCG and its management. Apart from the main objective of the initiative to prepare the Strategy the project resulted in elaboration of analysis of job requirements, new system of job performance assessment, staff motivation, etc.

The final strategy and action plan were endorsed by CCG management at the end of 2011. All HR activities are now proceeding according to the HR Strategy. However, in order to successful accomplishment of HR Strategy, the Czech experts recommended to CCG to further take into account the following four issues:

securing permanent support of CCG top management to implementation of HR strategy,
building professional HR service which will manage the implementation of the strategy,
ensuring professional growth of the personnel of HR department,
ensuring correct and timely communication of objectives, purpose and content of the strategy to all employees of the Chamber.

The implementation of the new HR Strategy into practice has contributed to decrease the rate of staff turnover from 33.6% to 20 -25% in 2009-2011 period.

The Czech experience and overall cooperation with Czech experts during creation of strategy were very positively assessed by Georgian counterparts. SAO experts also confirmed that they were open to cooperation with Georgian colleagues in the future.

HIV prevention: Partners from Tajikistan learn about Czech experience

Prague, Czech Republic, 31st October - 4th November 2011: Representatives of NGOs and state health care centres in Tajikistan visited the Czech Republic to familiarize themselves with the Czech experience with programmes designed to prevent HIV as well as providing social services to people living with HIV (PLHIV). Focus was on injection drug users and harm reduction programmes including substitution therapy and outreach work. Participants noted the high standard of services provided in the field of substitution therapy and HIV prevention. They visited inter alia a mobile ambulance (owned and operated by Sananim, an NGO), which provides on-the-spot health care services and needle exchange for drug users in an at-risk area of Prague. Participants also visited the AIDS Centre Faculty Hospital Na Bulovce, the leading hospital unit for treatment of PLHIV in the Czech Republic as well as the Czech AIDS Help Society “Lighthouse” which provides a system of preventive, health and psychosocial care for PLHIV.

The study tour will be followed by national workshop in Dushanbe intended to improve knowledge and skills of staff in the judicial system on protection of human rights of PLHIV; and to bring experience and expertise from Czech Republic on reducing stigma and discrimination.

The project is implemented by ResAd.

>> Final report on study tour (pdf.)

Evaluating environmental impact: Czech experts share knowledge partners in Azerbaijan

Prague, Czech Republic, 31st October - 4th November 2011: Czech experts on environmental impact assessments (EIA) welcomed their counterparts from Azerbaijan to the Czech Republic to share experiences of developing a system to evaluate environmental impact, including methodological, legal and regulatory frameworks and applying EIA in practice. The representatives from Azerbaijan ministries met with Czech experts who described how the EIA concept was integrated into national institutional and legal systems and the major challenges in applying EIA. Participants visited Arcellor Mittal Steel Company in Ostrava to see implementation of EIA practices of steel works and power plants and hear about EIA process from the perspective of project development. Participants said they wanted to use this knowledge in the planning of reconstruction of industrial buildings in Azerbaijan.

An expert from the Czech Republic is also providing assistance during preparation of a law on EIA, including drafting, and elaborating training guidelines for practitioners and decision-makers on application of an EIA system.

The project is implemented by Integra c.s.

>> Final report on study tour (pdf.)

Managing Human resources: Georgian parliamentarians learn about Czech experience

Prague, Czeche Republic, 10.-13. October 2011: Representatives of Georgian parliamentary services visited their Czech counterparts to learn more about the Czech approach to parliamentary development, operation and management. The focus was a modern approach to managing and developing the human resources system in parliaments as well as implementation of public relation strategies and communication tools. Participants visited premises the Czech Parliament, including the Chamber of Deputies as well as the Senate. They discussed the challenges of implementing the legal framework for human resources management and elaboration of public relations strategies.

The project is implemented by Agora CE.

>> Final report on study tour (pdf.)

Czech experience on energy efficiency in buildings shared with representatives from FYR Macedonia

Prague, Czech republic, 19. - 23. September 2011 - Representatives from national institutions, academia, private and financial sectors from FYR Macedonia visited the Czech Republic to observe the latest technology, Czech best practices and financial modalities related to the retrofitting of public buildings. The study visit provided insights into the legal, regulatory, administrative, technical and commercial aspects of public building retrofit programmes, based on the Czech experience in the field.

The visit supports acceleration of the implementation and enforcement of the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive as well as the National Energy Efficiency Action Plan of for FYR Macedonia. The project has three main parts: elaboration of feasibility study, organization of a study tour and elaboration of guidelines for energy efficiency retrofitting in public buildings.

The feasibility study covers a demonstration project of three public buildings in Skopje, including preparation of the technical documentation for procurement of energy saving technology.

The study tour in the Czech Republic provided examples of retrofitted buildings. A Czech expert will work with partners in Skopje to prepare the guidelines for energy efficiency retrofitting in public buildings in Skopje based on national circumstances, Czech best practices, and experience gained in the process of the demonstration project in Skopje.

>> Feasibility study

>> Final report on study tour (pdf.)

August 2011

Development efforts: UNDP evaluated Czech projects in Ethiopia

Conclusions and recommendations from the evaluation of an education project in Ethiopia supported by the Czech Development Cooperation were presented on 25 August, 2011 in Prague, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The project was focused on introducing up-to-date teaching methods into Ethiopia’s elementary and secondary schools. The UNDP-Czech Trust Fund commissioned the evaluation, in order to analyze the outcomes achieved and provide lessons for further development efforts. The attached evaluation report is in Czech language with an executive summary in English.

UNDP in Europe and Central Asia