WeBER Policy Briefs

Research of the transparency level, availability of information, as well as external communication and proactive approach to the citizens in key areas of public financial management in Montenegro, shows a lack of effort on the administrative part and significant problems. One of the key components of the state budget which is aimed at improving the life quality of citizens, is the capital budget. Considering the importance and differences in the process of making and implementing in relation to the rest of the budget, in this report we point out some of the key problems regarding openness, preparation and implementation of the capital budget, as well as bringing it close to citizens, with recommendations for improving the situation. Download the brief  ENG | MNE

The Appeal Commission has a very important role in the civil service system, as it protects rights and interests of civil servants, state employees and candidates for state authorities. The Law on Civil Servants and State Employees from 2017 has enabled professionalisation of the Appeal Commission. In other words, this means that all members are fully committed to work in the Commission. In the past they did it in parallel with other work and received special compensation for decision-making in the Commission. At the same time, its competences have been expanded, and instead of separate local commission, the Commission now decides on appeals of local officials, employees and candidates for jobs in local government. However, the appointment and dismissal procedures were not sufficiently elaborated, which had negative impact on practice. On October 2, 2021, the Government, by a decision and without holding a session, dismissed the entire Appeal Commission by telephone, referring to legal provisions that indicate unprofessional and negligent performance of duties. This dismissal, was conditioned by the fact that for almost three months, by the time of writing this brief at the end of December 2021, civil service system was left without a functional second-instance body for [...]

Effective communication between public institutions and the citizens of Kosovo is pivotal for the nation's democratic development. Transparency, trust-building, and public engagement hinge on the successful implementation of proactive and reactive informing strategies. Effective communication between public institutions and the citizens of Kosovo is essential for the nation's democratic development. Transparency, trust-building, and public engagement rely on successful proactive and reactive informing strategies. To strengthen democratic governance in Kosovo, policymakers should address these challenges and capitalize on the opportunities to enhance public information access and transparency. This paper examines the complexities of proactive and reactive informing in Kosovo, encompassing, the principle of proactivity, limited resources, institutional coordination, the law on access to public documents and civil society's concerns regarding access to public documents. Download the paper here (English) and here (Albanian)

The governments worldwide have been approaching toward more open and out-and-out reporting of their performance, yet regardless of this Kosovo’s governments throughout the years lack this approach. Measuring the performance of government lend a hand to shed light on and define government objectives and responsibilities as well as making performance more transparent through enlightening the public. Government work reports based on their performance should be an indicator for their continuing performance improvements, by calling attention to the upcoming improvements in addition to the objectives set up previously in the work plan. Over the last 5 years in this regard, accountability and openness are moving towards the real definition of transparency, Kosovo still has work to do. This is because they do not provide information and even access on which the public can hold the government accountable. The transition from one government to another and the institutional vacuums created, may be a factor of the problem but it does not stand as basis for an excuse. A Good Government should be defined by openness, therefore this policy note will give a background and an understanding of the problems regarding Government taking responsibility towards its citizens when reporting on their work [...]

Public perceptions from four out of six countries in the Western Balkans suggest that state administration has become more citizen oriented in the past two years. Citizens throughout the region are increasingly aware of electronic access to administrative services, even though the COVID-19 pandemic has had a limited impact on using this type of access. Interesting country-level variations are noted in different aspects of the survey. Click to download the survey.