Local economic development requires a joint agenda of stakeholders in the service of development

The Kosovo Local Government Institute (KLGI) held a training session on “The Local Finance Framework and Financial Planning, which aimed to set out the problems faced by municipalities and, at the same time, to give concrete recommendations/proposals to facilitate and improve the budget planning process.

Participants in this training session were the directors of the Directorates for Budget and Finance from all municipalities of the Republic of Kosovo. It is extremely important that municipalities look at funding opportunities in order to achieve sustainable planning and maintain financial stability.

To put the budget at the service of development, the link between policy planning and budget planning must be strengthened. Therefore, during the budget process the link between the municipalities' strategic development priorities and medium-term fiscal planning should be defined, in particular by including information on performance by budget programme and functional classification.

Opening the training session, the Executive Director of the KLGI Institute, Mr Besnik Muçaj, emphasised the Law on Local Government Finance, saying that the working group and other stakeholders have done good work on this law and that the results will be seen soon. But when it comes to budget planning, it is extremely important that it is reflected in achieving the strategies for local economic development. Before that, it is important that these strategies are realistic and have a financial assessment.

The Director of the Budget at the Ministry of Finance, Mr Salvador Elmazi, presented the concept of Local Finance and its Impact on local economic development. The local economic development agenda includes a joint strategy serving sustainable development. Municipalities, through their commitment during the budget process, must cooperate closely with the sectoral line ministries to address the challenges identified.

The Head of Budget Execution at the Ministry of Finance, Mr Jeton Kryeziu, spoke about municipal financial planning, management and control, as well as two electronic systems for budget preparation: the Budget Development and Management System (BDMS) and the Public Investment Programme (PIP).

This is the first training held within the project “Public Policy Programme – Finance and Local Economic Development.

The activity is organised within the programme ‘Support for Stronger and More Sustainable Municipalities (SSSM)’, which aims to analyse the current state of the local finance framework, as well as financial planning, management and control at the local level.