Meeting of the CEF Advisory Board

This year, the CEF Advisory Board met on September 2 in Bohinjska Bistrica, a day ahead of the signing of the Agreement on Establishing the Center of Excellence in Finance as an International Organization and the High-Level Policy Dialogue on Strategic Planning and Budgeting in South East Europe that took place at Bled, Slovenia.

The CEF Advisory Board is a flexible network of our donors and partners that are actively supporting the CEF or have a large scope of activities in the South East European region. It contributes to the development of the CEF’s programs and assists the CEF Supervisory Board and management in designing the Center’s strategies and operations. The chair of the Advisory Board is Mr. Jan Willem van den Wall Bakke from the Dutch Ministry of Finance.

This year, 20 participants representing 18 institutions discussed how to expand cooperation while taking into account our synergies and complementary roles. For the first time, representatives from the emerging donor countries were invited to share their activities in the region and impressions on potential cooperation with the CEF. The Advisory Board addressed also the Center’s new institutional status and its impact on the member countries, programs, funding and CEF governance structure, in particular the Advisory Board.

The participants of the Advisory Board meeting concluded that, in the new set-up, the CEF should maintain its flexibility and demand-driven approach, and further strengthen engagement with existing and new donors and partners.