Improving Writing Skills for Better Policy Measures
Ms. Desantila Muja works at the Albanian Ministry of Finance and Economy where she is in charge of monitoring and evaluating the national Public Financial Management (PFM) reform strategy. She was also involved in the revision process of the PFM reform that was carried out in 2019, concluding with a new PFM strategy addressing the challenges and setting the government priorities on public finances. Currently, she is revising the PFM action plan to tackle the challenges resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic and the earthquakes that hit Albania. Ms. Muja joined our recent online course that addressed the importance of clear and concise writing of structural reform measures as an essential part of the Economic Reform Programme (ERP). She now shares her reflections on how participating in this course helped her deepen the knowledge of how to better draft policy measures and improve negotiation skills to work with different stakeholders of the PFM reform.
Words are free. It is how you use them that may cost you. – Kushand Wizdom.
“We are constantly in contact with different people with whom we talk, share our thoughts, discuss and debate, and oftentimes we have to convince and negotiate over the message that we want to convey. However, saying everything makes us bored. Attending the online course “Policy Drafting and Negotiations in Line Ministries” on December 1–16, 2020, helped me transform my ideas into clear statements based on the target audience. The writing tactics provided in this course taught me how to translate policies and measures into simple, comprehensive and understandable messages.
The Covid-19 pandemic has caused many economic and financial problems that need to be addressed. I now feel more confident about how to give a short description of the problems to be solved and how to formulate the measures for that, while taking into account the target audience; how to be concrete and clear; how to explain the reasons why a measure is being taken, and finally how to avoid communicating things in too much detail.
However, it is not enough just to have clear and well-drafted measures. Forming a common institutional understanding and position of their content is equally important to present them to other institutions. This course helped me improve my negotiation skills and be as convincing as possible to convey the messages.
It was also good to learn from other participants – not only by sharing successful practices but also hearing how others are overcoming the challenges of the current worldwide crisis.
I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this online course organized by the CEF team. It helped me grow professionally.”