The programme should strengthen the capacity of the public sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in carrying out strategic planning and policy development. The long-term objective is the establishment of an efficient, effective, professional and accountable public administration throughout BiH that provides high quality services to the public, and supports progress towards EU accession.
The programme will build strategic planning and policy development capacities in line ministries sector by sector and is expected to focus especially on the capacities of ministries’ secretariats to ensure instruments and procedures promoting efficiency and effectiveness in public resources management in BiH as a whole, strengthening cross-institutional links, information sharing and over time more joint programme objectives and priorities.
The programme will also give special attention to strengthening the General Secretariat of the Councils of Ministers at State and government secretariats at the Entity levels, and to ensure improved management and coordination of strategic planning and policy initiatives. The programme should be linked to the OECD/EU initiative SIGMA (Support for Improvement in Governance and Management in Central and Eastern Europe Countries) on the reform of BiH Centre of Government and the on-going PAR-reform (Public Administration Reform), and should be closely coordinated with other donor-funded projects that are supporting public administration reforms.
The main outputs foreseen in each ministry/sector are the following:
1. Job descriptions for staff responsible for policy development and strategic planning, including necessary adjustments of ministerial rulebooks.
2. Formalised procedures for strategic planning and policy development to be used in the ministry, including necessary adjustments of ministerial rulebooks.
3. Relevant staff trained in and qualified to undertake policy development and strategic planning in accordance with the new rules and regulations.
4. At least one new policy for a key programme area produced and approved, and with first steps in implementation taken.
5. A multi-year action plan for strategic planning produced: first year better defined and costed key programme areas, second year results indicators, targets and a monitoring system and plan developed, the third year first monitoring results produced and more detailed costing of key programmes done, such as unit costs for delivering priority programmes.
6. Handbooks, instruments etc. required to successfully develop policy and carry out strategic planning produced, approved and in use.
In addition, there are more general outputs:
7. Overall systems across jurisdictional borders for ensuring coherence, comprehensiveness, consistency and quality in the various policy proposals and strategic plans developed, approved, and in use. This includes mechanisms for ensuring that new policies and strategic plans comply with national policy guidelines and medium-term fiscal targets and environmental, social and economic sustainability.
8. A local capacity for providing training in policy development and strategic planning established and capable of providing continuous skills upgrading to the public sector in these fields.