Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 20th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview PA Reform Author(s) Jurgita Mikolaityte Vilnius University Siauliai Academy Siauliai Lithuania Mejere Oksana, Title The transformations of youth policy development and implementation in the context of new public governance: The case of Lithuania File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Jurgita Mikolaityte Abstract The globalized environment of public administration reforms raises new challenges to the development of public policy, makes public institutions to improve planning, decision making and coordination of policy implementation processes. According to classical public administration paradigm the public services were provided by strongly hierarchical state institutions in accordance with particularly regulated procedural documents in way of vertical communication and coordination. While this model of public administration was appropriate and efficient for standardized and universal services, it incited segmentation and fragmentation instead of integration. The demand to increase the efficiency of public sector, to extend its functions from centralized to regional, from national to international level underlay the emergence of New Public Governance, including two main components: non-state actors in the government system and nonhierarchical methods of governance. Thus, public administration reform is orientated toward integration of such principles as open, nonhierarchical coordination of policy actors, combination of subsidiary, competition and sustainability into main fields of public policy. It demands the revision and transformation of traditional institutions of public administration and their roles in the process of policy formation and implementation. The paper presents the analysis of youth policy in Lithuania by examining the practices of new public governance principles in its development and implementation. The aspects of different levels of governance, coordination of multiple actors, and transition from vertical to horizontal management, decentralization and transfer of central state power to lower levels are analyzed in the case of youth policy development and implementation. In 1996 The Concept of Youth Policy was adapted; however the systematic and integral approach to it has been intensively developing since 2003 after the approval of The Law on Youth Policy Framework: Department of Youth Affairs at the MSSL as public body responsible for development and monitoring of Youth policy and the Council of Youth Affairs as deliberative body are established; the development and implementation of youth policy is systematically organized at national and local levels of government, integrating youth NGO organizations; long term strategy and recommendation on youth policy issues are created, etc. It is noticed, that membership in EU made strong impact on development and implementation of youth policy in Lithuania. Thus the practices of OCM in the field of youth policy formation and implementation, the development of intergovernmental relations and networking due to EU structural funds and programs are discussed in the paper. The analysis of underlying trends of integral youth policy in Lithuania is based on initiatives emphasized in “EU Council Resolution of 27 November 2009 on a renewed framework for European cooperation in the youth field (2010-2018)” and “EU Youth Strategy” (2009): horizontal integrity, evidence based policy formation; intersectional and intergovernmental cooperation; continuity, etc. However, there is lack of systemic integration of monitoring, evaluation and revision functions into youth policy governance cycle. It is emphasized, that the efficient development and implementation of youth policy, based on new public governance principles requires systematic continuity of these transformational processes.
