UNMIK/FR/008/01
FEATURE RELEASE - 19 January, 2001

JIAS reform
For "Kosovarization" read "empowerment"

Self-government for Kosovo was planned from the beginning: Resolution1244 mentions it four times, eight if we count its two annexes. Self-government is a concept, say its advocates, that all players should support the international community at large, the Republic of Yugoslavia and, above, all the resident Kosovars who will be its beneficiaries. Such benefits, they add, should not be smothered or forgotten in pursuit of wider (or for some, narrower) political ambitions. 

Many changes are still needed to bring self-government to fruition. Kosovo-wide elections, expected this year, will be the high point. Much has to happen before that. The Joint Interim Administrative System (JAIS) has still to reflect the results of the democratically-organized municipal elections last OctoberCand not only at the municipal level. Democratic principles require that at the centre both the number of Administrative Departments (currently twenty) and the assignment of their Co-Head positions to particular parties also reflect the changed political landscape. Such decisions along with corresponding expansion of both the Kosovo Transition Council (KTC) and the Interim Administrative Council (IAC) are among those awaiting the imprimatur of the incoming SRSG, Hans Haekkerup.

But just as important as who shares administrative power at the centre is how such power is distributed within the civil service. Self-government will have little meaning if a handful of international bureaucrats continues to hold the reins. The difference, expressed in the latest addition to UNMIK-speak, is kosovarization the return to resident Kosovars of decision-making power and responsibility for policy-making and policy implementation at all levels of government.

Back  in June 1999 when the entire machinery for central and local government had broken down, such power and responsibility necessarily had to be taken up by international officials, experts and the four organizational pillars that then constituted UNMIK. Formal setting up of the Joint Interim Administrative System (JIAS) in December 1999 was the first step away from that, in the direction of self-, i.e. Kosovar-, government.

From then on UNMIK could list to a spectrum of views from Kosovar leadership in politics and civil society. This was, arguably, kosovarization of opinion-forming, if not yet serious empowerment. Representatives of the political parties and groups in civil society appointed to the KTC could summon and question the officials appointed to run the JIAS Administrative Departments. The IAC, originally including Kosovo-Albanian representatives of the Rambouillet parties and later involving a Kosovo-Serb representative of the Gracanica group, had the power to review all regulations and, where it thought fit, to recommend alternatives for the SRSG consideration.

Elections
It will be up to future historians to decide if the next empowerment milestones in this period were reallyKosovo's  two sets of electionsCthe municipal elections in 2000 and the Kosovo-wide elections in 2001. Certainly both will have seen significant increases in Kosovar empowerment.

The municipal elections and the replacement of appointed municipal councils with elected Municipal Assemblies initiated significant transfers of power and responsibility. Many decisions previously reserved (after due consultation) for the UNMIK Municipal Administrators will now go to the municipalities elected Kosovar Presidents and Vice-Presidents, their Chief Executive Officers, the chairpersons and members of a series of municipal committees and to the reconstituted Municipal Boards.

The general election will likewise, whatever framework finally decided for it, initiate the appointment of the heads of the Administrative Departments by elected Kosovar representativesCreplacing the UNMIK appointed international and local Co-Heads that jointly run each department at present. Certainly the internationals (UNMIK personnel) will still be on hand, but in advisory, not executive, capacities.

The political scene by the end of 2001 will therefore be very different to the pre-October 2000 one. Democratically electedCas opposed to appointedCpeople will be working in partnership with UNMIK at all levels of the interim administration.

Public service continuity
Kosovarization at the centre of government is not just a matter of who heads up an Administrative Department. Nor does it mean waiting until the general election is over before making any changes. The job of civil servants, DSRSG Tom Koenigs told the Council of Co-Heads last week, is to ensure that the interim administration continues to function regardless of political changes and without waiting for the interim political framework.

This means immediate work on identifying the general conditions and criteria that the departments must meet to ensure they continue to provide the services the public expects. It also means initiating a gradual transition so that control over most of the functions of the interim administration devolve from international (or joint) control to local control with international oversight.

Koenigs laid out several goal-oriented criteria for the empowerment transition in the 15 JIAS departments under his supervision. Two will significantly empower their  Kosovar civil servants:

 - Mechanisms that clearly divide political and administrative roles of the provisional institutions: JIAS departments and Kosovo's possible future ministries and agencies should be able to function independently (substantively and administratively) in a de-politicized manner.

  - Departments and agencies structured and organized to fulfil their functions and deliver services relying on staff recruited on the basis of professional (substantive, administrative and management) competence in all areas of responsibility, including budget and finance. Ensure complete training of staff in substantive, administrative and management skills. Assess staff competence in each functional area and development of a mechanism to ensure continuance of professional, multiethnic and integrated civil service at all levels.

In the interests of a truly de-politicized civil service, a third criterion would empower a small group of Kosovar civil servants, increasing their authority and responsibility in relation to both international and unofficial advisers in political parties. Consideration should be given, recommends Koenigs, to the appointment of a permanent secretary as head of each department. Recruited  on the basis of merit determined in open competition before the general elections, Permanent Secretaries would provide continuity in each department whenever their political heads, tomorrow ministers perhaps, change.

Similar transitions with corresponding local empowerment are planned in other parts of  the interim administration. Professionalizing public institutions, says OSCE Head Daan Everts (Deputy SRSG for democratization and institution building), is crucial to promoting local ownership of the new bodies and structures. The OSCE-developed institutions that train the civil service, the police and the public service media have a crucial role: they ensure that empowered is not accompanied by dilution of competence. To date, the Institute for Civil Administration, for example, has trained over a thousand civil servant. Starting this week it will train all the new Presidents and CEOs of the new Municipal Assemblies.  By June this year, the Kosovo Police Service School will hve delivered basic training to 4,200 police cadetsCthe raw material for Kosovo own multiethnic police force.
All these institutes themselves require participation by Kosovars at all administrative levels. OSCE planning therefore foresees gradual transfer of policy and management responsibilities to Kosovars and to the Kosovo Consolidate Budget. AEnhancing local capacities is paramount to the goals fo developing democratic institutions, says Ambassador Everts. This year, OSCE will remain fully engaged in assisting Kosovo with this process.

The Administrative Departments and institutions for reconstruction and economic development under Deputy SRSG Andy Bearpark are likewise gearing up for the transitionCincreasing the number of Kosovars in all positions. Already they occupy vast majority in the Central Fiscal Authority. Each of the sector offices in the Department of Public Utilities has two heads, one Kosovar, one international. The Department of Trade and Industry is now recruiting additional Kosovar staff.

Different approaches
While all of UNMIK and the JIAS Administrative Departments will work aggressively on the transition arrangements, their empowerment strategies need not be identical.

Kosovar staff at the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Development were empowered from the very beginning. It was essentially they, acknowledges UNMIK Co-Head Maurizio Farinelli, who drew up the first policy document in November [?] 1999. From the start, therefore, the department structure was designed to be handed over to them, and thus to depend on relatively few international posts. UNMIK and Kosovar staff, today, are completely integrated. Kosovars head up the department legal office and each of the four divisions. International staff, supported by donor governments and agencies, act as advisers.

Through the new structure, kosovarization should be simple, says Farinelli. AAt any moment it will be possible to remove the international component, for example by separating the incumbents at the ends of their contracts. The Kosovo provisional structure will remain

Contrasting with Agriculture horizontal (across-the-board) approach, empowerment in the Department of Public Services uses a vertical model. In addition, DPS Co-Heads Bexhet Brajshori and  Peter Schumann have assigned the complex problems associated with the transition to local control to a special planning and oversight unitCrecognizing that the department operational divisions are too busy with day-to-day matters. In the vertical approach, those divisions having daily contact with the general public (Policy and Legal Support for Civil Documents, and the Central Procurement Entity) report directly to Brajshori. The three concerned with other JIAS departments (Operations and General Services, Civil Service and Personnel Administration, and Budget and Finance Services) report to Schumann.

The Department of Education exemplifies departments having most contact with the municipalities and thus most impacted by current changes at the municipal level. Empowerment refers therefore to the whole complex process of transferring responsibility for primary and secondary education from the department to the municipalities.

Although one key policy aim is to keep education as far away from political people at the centre as possible, explains DES Co-Head Michael Daxner, the fact that there are too few trained people in the municipalities is a major hurdle. Eventually, municipal education departments will have to take over title and responsibility for school land and buildings, for their security and maintenance, and for their access and transportation needs. The municipal school system also needs a database that permits data entry at school level but prevents fraud and bad entries at the same time.

Daxner nevertheless expects the environment of the education system (the buildings and infrastructure) to be handed over to empowered Kosovars, especially at the municipal level, much earlier than education itself. The prospect is therefore for a lean, central Department of Education and Science to continue working on the fundamental reforms education still needsCmodernized teaching methods and curricula in line with those of the rest of Europe.    

For a selection of photographs, please contact Mr. Ky Chung at 038 504-604 ext. 5467

Contact: P. Ellwood
(038) 504 604 Ext. 5471
E-mail: ellwood@un.org