The project is co-funded by the Dutch Ministry of Finance (roughly two thirds) and the CEF (roughly one third), and will cover the costs of hotel and travel of two participants per selected country. The regional conference is delivered by the CEF, in cooperation with the Dutch National Academy for Finance and Economics (NAFE).

Why participate? Making line ministries responsible and accountable for spending public money: what is in it for the Ministry of Finance? Learn in a day from experiences of your colleagues in the region, and share your insights! What could work in your country? Why? Why not!?

Background Information

In the last couple of decades countries of South East Europe have embarked on many innovations in reforming their public financial management systems, such as medium-term budget frameworks, program budgeting and commitment control. While some of the challenges in reforming the budget systems are similar across the region, there are also country specific innovations and solutions.

There is an abundance of good practices in the region where many of the countries are aspiring to become members of the European Union. The CEF works closely with these countries to support their capacity development endeavors through training and technical assistance. The CEF works closely with the Dutch Ministry of Finance / NAFE in this respect. Moreover, most of the countries in the region share a constituency with the Netherlands in the World Bank, IMF and EBRD.

With this in mind, both the CEF and NAFE agreed to organize a regional conference to facilitate an exchange of experience and knowledge in reforming budget processes, with a specific focus on the role of line ministries. Through our work in the region we have learned that further development of capacities is needed in line ministries to improve the budget process. Moreover, through regular consultations with both finance and line ministries in the region we have come to understand that finance directorates at line ministries often have insufficient steering and control capacities and instead of strengthening their role remain focused on bookkeeping. Line ministries also often lack operational management capacity in the areas such as human resource management, ICT, and procurement management, further diminishing their important role in the budget process.

Consequently, the top management (including the minister) at the line ministries is overloaded, influencing the relationship with the finance ministry that feels it has to carry out tasks that to some extent maybe could better be executed by line ministries. Strengthening capacities of line ministries is therefore an important part of reforming public financial management systems. Their strengthened capacities will not only lead to a better division of tasks in relation to the finance ministries and better use of human resources at the intermediate and lower levels of the ministerial hierarchy, but also to savings and better quality of services. In other words: doing better with less resources. Strengthened capacities will also allow freeing up financial means for new spending priorities or deficit reduction.

Conference Objective

The key objective of the regional conference is to share experience and identify good practice in South East European countries in strengthening the role of line ministries in the budget process.

Conference Participants

The conference is aimed at State Secretaries and Directors of Budget Departments at the Ministries of Finance of South East Europe.

Conference Format

The one-day conference will be delivered in the form of a round-table discussion. The working language of the conference will be English.

The follow-up to this conference could include organizing country specific events, hosted by respective ministry of finance with participants from line ministries to address country specific solutions. After learning countries endeavors to strengthen the role of line ministries, another region wide event might be organized to showcase the good practice across the region.

Discussion Points

The conference participants will be asked to reflect on the following questions prior to coming to the event:

What do you believe are key challenges in improving the budget process in your country?
What has contributed to successful developments in recent years, seen from the angle of the relationship between the Ministry of Finance and line ministries?
What further steps do you believe are needed to strengthen the role of line ministries in the budget process?
Can you think of any capacity development efforts that you think would help strengthening the role of line ministries?

Faculty

About the Organizers

The event will be co-moderated by the CEF and NAFE, and include key-note speeches to stimulate the discussion.

>> CEF and our role in South East Europe
The CEF supports capacity development in public financial management and central banking topics for individuals and institutions. We do this by designing high-quality, practical and learning-centered specialization programs and training events; by promoting networks of professionals; and by stimulating regional cooperation. We partner with multilateral and bilateral agencies, knowledge institutions, and peer organizations, and we tap the expertise of a broad range of individual experts.
The CEF’s main beneficiaries are central banks and ministries of finance in South East Europe. Upon their initiative, we have been extending our efforts to also strengthen capacities of budget officials at line ministries. In 2012, we co-operated with experts from the region in the Fiscal Impact of Structural Reforms project to better understand line ministries’ role in countries’ annual processes of budget preparation and medium-term fiscal programming, and how costs of structural reforms are incorporated.
The capacity development needs identified have been addressed through a series of learning and networking activities within our project on Strategic Planning and Budgeting, which is EU-funded. For example, we developed new courses on the Integration of Structural Reforms into Fiscal Programming, and Budget Submissions of Line Ministries. Also, we integrate line ministries’ needs in our budget preparation and execution course program, and involve budget officials of line ministries in joint activities with counterparts from ministries of finance. We are further intensifying our efforts in this regard.

>> Synergies with Dutch technical assistance in South East Europe

NAFE is a training institute with more than 20 years of experience in the field of Finance, Audit and Economics. All Dutch ministries make use of the range of academic courses it offers. For several years, NAFE has also organized study visits especially for countries that have acceded or are about to accede to the European Union. NAFE forms part of the Budget Affairs Directorate of the Ministry of Finance. NAFE’s main clients (Internal Budget and Internal Audit Directorates of line ministries) are represented in its Client Council. The National Academy operates on a purely government-to-government basis, and only as far as its capacity allows.
Over the past few years, the Dutch Ministry of Finance has received a growing number of requests to assist ministries of finance in other countries with the introduction and implementation of reforms in public finances. In light of the international recognition of the Dutch public finance system as “best practice” (OECD, 2001), and taking into account a clear Dutch interest, the Dutch Ministry of Finance is favorably disposed towards such requests. One of the latest illustrations in the region is a twinning Project in Moldova as mentioned in the European Commission (DG Enlargement) 2013 Activity Report on Twinning, Taiex and SIGMA within ENPI countries.
To address CEF member countries’ priorities and needs, the CEF works closely with the Dutch Ministry of Finance and NAFE, whose experts use the CEF as their hub for multi-beneficiary training activities for South East Europe. Our organizations’ efforts in the region are complementary and mutually reinforcing.

Moderators and Speakers

[tentative list, in alphabetic order]

Robert BAUCHMÜLLER
Mr. Bauchmuller has been working for the CEF since December 2010 as manager of the program on Building Capacities in Policy Design and Implementation, which includes activities that facilitate policy discussions in South East Europe. He has designed and managed the Fiscal Impact Assessment of Structural Reforms project, and is now in charge of the delivery of the EU-funded Strategic Planning and Budgeting project. Mr. Bauchmuller leads the CEF’s research and design efforts to incorporate capacity development needs of line ministries into the CEF learning program.
Before moving to Slovenia, Mr. Bauchmuller was a research fellow at the Graduate School of Governance at Maastricht University, while undertaking PhD research in public policy analysis, which he successfully completed in May 2013. There he also gained experience in teaching at the graduate and undergraduate levels, and managed learning programs delivered in cooperation with UNICEF and the ILO.
Mr. Bauchmuller holds an MSc degree in Economics from Maastricht University. He has been abroad for several exchange and research visits, for example, to the Warsaw School of Economics, the University of Essex, and the Governmental Research Institute AKF in Copenhagen.

Ahmet KESIK
Prof. Dr. Ahmet Kesik is a lecturer on Public Finance at the Public Finance Department of the Yıldırım Beyazıt University in Ankara. He is also teaching at other public and private universities in Turkey, and provides consultancy services to a range of EU and WB projects. He recently published three editorial books on development planning, strategic management, and public management reforms in Turkey. He is a Board Member in two public companies in the Turkish banking sector and the defense industry.
Mr. Kesik graduated from Ankara University, Faculty of Political Sciences’ Economics Department in 1986. Between 1994 and 1996, he graduated in Economics from Western Illinois University in USA. He received the Karen Courter Award and the Outstanding Economics Graduate Paper Award, and qualified for the 1995-1996 ABD National Dean’s List. After completing his graduate education, he passed exams of State Government of Illinois, USA and has done internships in the Public Procurement Department (with a Michael Curry Scholarship) and in the State Governor Budget Office (with a Dunn Fellowship).
Returning to Turkey, he was nominated Head of Department and, in 2002, Deputy General Director of the Directorate for the Budget and Fiscal Control. Between 2006 and 2013, he worked as General Director of Strategy Development Unit in the Ministry of Finance. Between 2012 and 2014, Mr. Kesik served as General Director of Management Services of the Ministry of Development.

Joop POT
In 1992-2000, Mr. Pot has been the director of the Financial and Economic l Affairs Directorate at the Dutch Ministry of Finance. During this period, Dutch Public Finance Management, after setbacks and apparent failures to operate as it should, went through a period of fundamental reforms that until today have proved to be sustainable.
In 2000-2006, he has been the Deputy Director General of the Dutch Government Buildings Agency (Rgd) with the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM).
In 2006-2014 Mr. Pot was responsible for financial management and ICT with the Council of the Judiciary. This Council takes care of operational aspects of the Dutch judicial system like allocation of budgets, supervision of financial management, personnel policy, ICT and housing. Mr. Pot has been member of several supervisory boards and audit committees, such as the Audit Committee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (since 2012; as Chairman since 2012) and the Dutch House of Parliament’s Audit-Committee (since 2011). Recently, he became a member of the Executive Board of the Dutch Gaming Authority.
In 1979, he graduated in Economics cum laude from Groningen University. He has held since several teaching positions, amongst others for the Dutch Academy of Finance and Economics.

Conference on Strengthening the Role of Line Ministries in the Budget Process