Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 27th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview Capacity Building Workshop Author(s) Almedina Vukic Secretariat-General of the Government Podgorica Montenegro Title New Legal and Institutional Framework as Tools for Fostering Evidence-based Strategic planning in Montenegro File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Almedina Vukic Abstract Public Administration Reform (PAR) is one of the three pillars of European Union accession negotiations and it highlights the importance of well-functioning public institutions. Efficient and effective administration system is an enormous asset in achieving European standards, which is why the emphasis is put on this issue for the aspiring new member-states. Montenegro, as a Western Balkans (WB) front-runner in the European integration (EI) process, is no exception when it comes to the point of PAR, especially because the advanced stage of EU negotiations regarded more focus on this topic. A part of it – policy planning and co-ordination - was recognized as very important on the EU level in the period of creating the Cohesion policy when the alignment between national strategic documents and the EU policy framework. The Government of Montenegro has taken decisive steps in order to achieve higher efficiency and impact of public policies which required the revision of the existing strategic framework. This approach was mostly based on establishing a coherent strategic planning system based on a strong legal and methodological grounds. The process of transformation of the existing approach to policy and strategic planning began within the former Ministry of European Affairs (MEA) and was later transferred to the Secretariat-General of the Government (SGG). The Department for Government Strategies (DGS) was formed with purpose to give guidance and issue opinions on drafts and proposals of strategic documents and reports on their implementation in order to achieve better alignment, monitoring and evaluation of strategic documents. Before establishing the new legal and methodological framework, DGS conducted a number of analysis in order to identify the solutions that could be applied best in the Montenegrin context. Each and every step in the process, from establishment of the DGS to the implementation of the Decree on procedure of drafting, alignment and monitoring implementation of strategic documents will be described in this paper, thus indicating the direction that Montenegro decided to take as the most appropriate for a small country with small administration. Bearing in mind that Montenegro's most important foreign policy strategic goal is the accession to the EU, but also given the 2025 perspective, it becomes more important to align national with EU policies that would help Montenegro's development. Only through good planning of priority areas, which is also one of the requests from Chapter 22, Regional policy and coordination of structural funds, will Montenegro be able to use the benefits of Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) in order to achieve its policy goals. By affirming its position through coordinated planning system, Montenegro, in the end, portraits itself as a credible and successful future EU member-state.
