Public administration reform in Kosovo: strengthening the role and capacities of Kosovo Institute of Public Administration : [presentation given November 17, 2010.]

This capstone project is addressing the challenges of Public Administration Reform (PAR) in Kosovo with focus on strengthening the role and capacities of the Kosovo Institute of Public Administration (KIPA), the KIPA is a critical institution for ensuring a successful implementation of the Strategy of Public Administration Reform. During research, it was noticed that countries aspiring to join the European Union have undergone serious reforms in their public administration, in search for good governance, and improvement of administrative efficiency, also the promotion of the devotion of public sector staff to democratic values, ethics and respect of the rule of law. In this regard, this capstone project makes comparative analyses between six countries, including Kosovo, and their civil service training centers. These countries and their civil service training institutions, have witnessed and are witnessing the ongoing changes, influenced by significant reforms of public administration, and also very much influenced by the process of European Integration. The KIPA stakeholders main concerns, that have emerged from conducted survey, are the government budgetary allocation for KIPA and the professional skills of the KIPA staff. In this regard, 92% of respondents considers that KIPA is under financed (fig. 0.1), and an interesting very mixt perception it was expressed about the level of professional skills of the KIPA staff. This way, a significant percentage of respondents, 61%, consider that the skills of KIPA employees are partially or totally inadequate (fig.0.2), against 3% of respondents that considers them as a adequate. This Report offers an objective assessment of the current role, legal framework and capacities of KIPA. This assessment it is based on comparative analyses made and on experiences of the countries in transition studied in this report, and also using the best practices of developed European countries. it recommends concrete steps towards accomplishment of the This report, considering the very important role that KIPA has in the process of implementation of PAR, offers short and mid term recommendations to KIPA. Furthermore, the report recommends concrete strategic development objectives, which are in line with the development paths undergone by a similar civil service training institutions, from European Union member states. In this line, reports main recommendations to KIPA can be considered: • Adoption of Law on KIPA, that defines KIPA as a market-like and client driven training institution; • Establishment of KIPA Executive and Advisory Board’s ,and • Twining with a similar institution from one of the EU countries. In addition, the report recommends to the Government of Kosovo introduction of mandatory training budget, which will not be lower than 1.5 % of salary budget, and targeting level of 3% by 2015