Oct 15, 2021

Raising Awareness of How to Estimate the Impact of Structural Reforms

Collected story portrays personal learning experience of Marko Bjelica from the Montenegrin Ministry of Economic Development with attending the online course “Beyond Fiscal Implications of Structural Reforms”. It captures Mr. Bjelica’s thoughts on what values from both a personal and professional perspective the course brought him. The course was delivered as part of the EU funded “Strengthening Line Ministries’ Capacities to Assess Fiscal Implications of Structural Reforms” (FISR) project.

“I received an invitation to participate in the online course “Beyond Fiscal Implications of Structural Reforms” from our Director General who thought that it would be useful for me and our team to get acquainted with the topics that the course addressed. 

The course focused on two impacts of structural reforms’ implications: on the economy (competitiveness, growth) and on employment. It also looked at how estimated qualitative and quantitative impacts of proposed structural reforms affect the criteria for their prioritization, and how the policy prioritization process depends on the roles and responsibilities of different institutions.

Having in mind that I joined the Ministry only one year ago and that my knowledge of these topics was somewhat limited, I was strongly motivated to take part in this course and gladly accepted the invitation.

During the course, I appreciated getting an overall picture of policy-making processes that precede measuring the impact of a certain structural reform. Being new to this area of work, it was very useful to get an overview of how things work in practice. The course also gave me ideas how to apply some of the discussed subject matters in my line of work. In general, I feel now that I have a better understanding of how to use quantitative and qualitative indicators, and how to make and propose measures for a concrete initiative.”