IIAS Panel

Building Capacity for Sustainable Governance: European and International Perspectives.

Description:

The concept of governance and its sustainability continues to be a central concern in Public Administration. In this perspective, Capacity building is considered as a crucial factor that leads to better governance, a governance that is built by and for citizens.

Governance refers to the processes of governing – the processes of interaction and decision-making among the government; creation, use and management of networks; citizen participation for the purpose of creating, reinforcing, and/or reproducing social norms and institutions that facilitate sustainable development provide effective and efficient services, and ultimately improve the quality of human life.

At the global level, the United Nations have ratified these concerns, by committing to the realization, by 2030, of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). At the European level, EU defined the Agenda 2020 and other priorities for the coming decades. In all regions of the world, realizing the SDGs poses an enormous challenge to public administration. It requires:improving legal, institutional and organizational frameworks; setting strategic priorities, with the participation of citizens; freeing up resources for these priorities; managing these resources on such a way as to achieve results, including steering and coordination with all the stakeholders; using evaluation and feedback mechanisms; communicating about results achievements. The SDG framework, in short, requires intelligent, sustainable or resilient governance, taking a long-term view and a broad scope of actions.

During this session, IIAS panelists will focus on the issues of capacity building strategies and methods for sustainable governance at all levels: local to national, regional to global. They will address questions such as how to build capacity to ensure resource use and how to build human and organizational capacity to ensure social stability, justice, peace, and prosperity.

They will also further discuss governance strategic priorities, including citizen participation and stakeholder coordination to balance human needs and resource sustainability; discuss how to improve legal, institutional and organizational systems to ensure governance efficiency, efficacy, equity and sustainability; and discuss the management (educating and training civil servants – including spreading common standards) of human and financial resources to achieve sustainable governance goals.

The IIAS panelists will focus on the different aspects of this important issue:

1) To what extent is the SDG Framework relevant for European and Central-Asian countries?

2) Which reforms of legal, institutional and organizational frameworks and systems are needed to ensure sustainable governance for development?

3) Which capacity building strategies and methods are needed to achieve these objectives, with the involvement of all stakeholders?

4) Which ‘standards’, if any, can inform sustainable governance development policies (e.g: PA education and training standards, financial accounting, management accounting, budgeting and auditing systems standards (IPSAS – EPSAS) sustainability standards (Guidance on social responsibility.)….)?

5) Which type of frameworks for monitoring and evaluating Sustainable development & governance objectives, defining role/responsibility and what type of coordination mechanisms should be established from the outset?

6) What are the main indicators for measuring sustainable governance?

Chair of the Panel

·Rolet Loretan, IIAS Director General, Chair/moderator (confirmed)

Discussant

Veronica Junjan - University of Twente, The Netherlands

Panelists:

· Munira Aminova, Assistant Professor, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

· Teodora Bitoiu, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Romania

· Michiel de Vries, Radboud University, The Netherlands, IASIA President