05/2022

On November 8th and 9th, KDZ together with the OECD Public Governance and the Austrian Ministry for Public Service conducted the Deep Dive Workshop in Vienna with 11 European public sector organizations which have been awarded with the CAF Excellence Label.

The workshop was a milestone within the project "Strengthening the Resilience of Public Administration after COVID-19 with the Common Assessment Framework (CAF)", funded by the DG REFORM of the European Commission. The projekt elaborates recommendations for resilience of public administration and the improvement of the CAF towards resilience.

In the KDZ blog the lessons learned of the 11 case studies can be found blog.

On November 10th, the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) published the report and website "Local finances and the green transition in Europe: A decade of local finances - from crisis to sustainable recovery". KDZ provided important input for the report and is proud to have participated in the discussion at the launch event.

The online publication highlights the trends and evolutions of local and regional finances from the aftermath of the financial crisis to the beginning of the COVID pandemic. As part of this report, a specific focus has been given on the green dimension of local finance and the contribution of LRGs in the investments needed to meet the challenges of the green transition.

==> New Website Localfinances-cemr.eu

Within BACID III program the CAF Centre of KDZ is supporting the Regional School of Public Administration (ReSPA) in building up a Regional Quality Management Centre (RQMC) for the Western Balkan Countries. After implementing two rounds of EFAC training in 2021 and 2022 about 40 trained EFAC have been trained and equipped by CAF Centre of KDZ to deliver CAF Professional External Feedback Procedure (PEF) for obtaining the Effective CAF User Label.

About 250 public sector organisations in Europe are already certified with this label recognizing their commitment for continuous improvement and following the standards for implementing the Common Assessment Framework (CAF).
 
With the mentoring of the CAF Centre of KDZ ReSPA’s CAF External Feedback Evaluators (EFACs) Kenan Avdagic and Dalibor Copic have started with the CAF Professional External Feedback Procedure (PEF) in the Agency. During the on-site visit they evaluated the Agency´s fulfillment of the CAF excellence standards.

On October 10th the "Digitalization Working Group" was established and held its constituent first meeting. NALAS: Network of Associations of Local Authorities of South-East Europe in cooperation with KDZ is going to boost and support the digitalization of Cities in the next years and will bring together those responsible for digitalization in the local government associations and cities.

"Congrats to the NALAS digitalization and Smart City Officer Jana Belcheva Andreevska for this important initiative ", KDZ Managing Director Thomas Prorok was pleased.

A big thank to the Austrian Development Agency for supporting the BACID program!

On Ocotber 17th, the 40 members of the KDZ Scientific Advisory Board met for a hybrid exchange. Current issues of the public sector were discussed:

Financing public services in times of crisis (Margit Schratzenstaller and Alfred Heiter). How can the financing of public services be secured under these circumstances? Are the traditional reform proposals sufficient?

Administrative and Structural Reforms in Europe (Geert Bouckaert and Jan-Hinrik Meyer-Sahling).  Experiences with the Technical Support Initiative, the structural reform approaches of the European Commission and the potentials for reforms as well as for KDZ and other research institutions have been discussed.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Environmental Social Governance (ESG) and EU taxonomy in the public sector (Herbert Tempsch and Heidrun Maier-de Kruijf) What further sustainability requirements the public sector will have to face and how the KDZ can act was discussed.

You can find the members of our Advisory Board here.

On October 13th and 14th, the midterm-conference on the project "LOGOV - Local Government and the Changing Urban-Rural Interplay" took place at Ludwig-Maximilian University Munich. The conference brought huge learnings on Local Governments in Albania, Argentinia, Austria, Australia, Canada, Ethopia, India, Italy, Germany, Poland, Serbia, South Africa, Switzerland in

• Local Responsibilities and Public Services
• Local Financial Arrangements
• Structure of Local Government
• Intergovernmental Relations of Local Governments
• People‘s Participation in Local Decision Making.

Thanks to all the great researchers and experts who showed the importance of local governments for the social and economic cohesion and development, the democratic safeguarding and the services and infrastructure for the people in our countries and the European Union.

==> LOGOV Website

As part of the EU-funded project "Local Government and the Changing Urban-Rural Interplay" (LOGOV), KDZ Expert Dalilah Pichler conducted a month secondment in the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe.
The Congress is part of the Council of Europe with the mission to promote, strengthen and defend local and regional democracy in Europe by upholding the principles of the "European Charter of Local Self-Government".

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Mathieu Mori for beeing elected as new Secretary General of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.  We are looking forward to cooperating for strong and sustainable local and regional governments in Europe.

On October 2oth the NALAS (Network of Associations of Local Authorities of South-East Europe) Strategy Workshop took place in Podgorica. KDZ Managing Director Thomas Prorok participated in the workshop and ensured the future support of KDZ for the impartant work of NALAS especially in

• Fiscal Decentralisation in Western Balkans,
• Smart Digitalization of Cities,
• EU-Impact on local governments and EU fundings,
• Participatory Budgeting.

On October 19th, the CAF User Conference organized under the Czech Presidency took place in Prague. Philip Parzer, Head of the CAF Centre, was happy to contribute with partners from Austria and EU-Agencies presenting best practices and approaches for good CAF implementations.

KDZ organised the following contributions to the conference:

• eu-LISA: Together as one – CAF in eu-LISA
• City of Vienna: „Resilience with CAF - Pillar of Strenght in Stormy Weather“
• State administration of Styria: „The conquest of CAF paradise or 7 necessary summits of leadership“

KDZ Managing Director Thomas Prorok contributed on October 18th to the 9th Danube Participation Day of Danube Region Strategy in the panel “EUSDR on the path to resilience” and stressed the importance of civil society participation in local government policies.

In his view, Open Local Government is strongly linked to the UN Principles of Effective Governance and needs focus on:

• Ensuring the Competence of politicians and public employees to involve citizens and civil society.
• Sound Policy Making ensures the coordination between all levels of government and other stakeholder.
• Transparency of all local government activities which are open for contributions from outside.
• Inclusiveness to leave no one behind and focus on social and economic cohesion and balance on the local level.
• Last but not least: Participation of all significant political groups who should be actively involved in matters that directly affect them and have a chance to influence policy.

Sofia Calzola is an Italian master’s student from the University of Perugia (Università degli Studi di Perugia).

At KDZ, she is carrying out her curricular internship and supports our international activities for the next three months, from November 2022 to February 2023.

Sofia has a bachelor’s degree in Languages and foreign cultures. She is currently doing a Master’s degree in International Relations, curriculum Migration, Globalisation and World Governance at the University of Perugia (Università degli Studi di Perugia), Department of Political Science.

Welcome to KDZ, Sofia.