ESF SUPPORT TO CAPACITY BUILDING IN LATVIA Gunta Veismane Director of the State Chancellery Latvia 9 February 2006

On-going capacity building activities Support to the public institutions involved in implementation of labour market and gender equality policies – 8 MEUR Support to those social partners responsible for implementation of the implementation of labour market and gender equality policy – 2,3 MEUR Assistance to the marginal NGOs to increase their ability to implement ESF projects – 0,43 MEUR In the current programming period outside the technical assistance to institutions administering ESF, support to capacity building is limited in scope and in activities. However, we would like to emphasize capacity building support to marginal NGOs, namely, NGOs that previously could not compete in the open calls due to the lack of experience, knowledge or resources, as well as capacity building of social partners responsible for design and implementation of labour market and gender equality policy. Among those social partners are trade unions’ association and employers’ association. The activities within those measures varied from the introduction of the quality management systems in the institutions designing and implementing labour market and gender equality policies, to general and specific training, elaboration of the PR strategy, improvement of co-operation among public sector and the social partners, etc.

Lessons – learned from the current assistance Target group should be extended Scope of the activities should be extended Regular follow – up and assessment is needed At this stage not all of the activities have been finalized yet. Nevertheless, judging on the basis of the current experience, several conclusions can be drawn, namely: Target group should be extended, and activities must be de-centralized. For instance, in the current programming period “the head office” of the trade unions association was targeted – in the next programming period we should look further, and regionalize the activity, targeting branch offices of the social partners’ organizations. The capacity building activities should be extended to cover the widest possible scope of administrative support measures. Nevertheless, at the same time it is important to target the intervention, since the capacity building needs are not comparable to ability provide capacity building. It is necessary to ensure follow – up and regular assessment of the capacity building exercises in order to re-target future activities, if necessary, or to review intensity of capacity building activities.

ESF SUPPORT FOR INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY IN LATVIA 2007-2013 The areas of interventions for next programming period: Policy design, implementation and impact assessment; Supporting education and training systems; Provision of public services. The focus on: Strengthening of institutional capacity and human capital at all administration level (central, regional, local); Involvement of all policy actors – central government, municipalities, public institutions, NGOs, social partners, civil society, academicals staff and researchers. 1) The first intervention actions in policy design, implementation and impact assessment area will be aimed on implementation of good governance principles at all administration level. It could be done trough policy stakeholders’ training and awareness raising, development of networking of social partners at national and regional level, representatives of civil society. 2) The second intervention will cover: a) improvement and development of education, training and life-long learning system for employees of public administration; b) Development and strengthening of partnership between educational institutions (higher education institutions, State Administration school, local municipality’s training institutions) and representatives of central and local government. 3) The third intervention actions will be aimed on: improvement of quality and accessibility of public services provided by public institutions; simplification and improvement of administrative and legislative procedures. 4) The particular attention will be paid to new municipalities established in a result of Administrative territorial reform in year 2009 and development of social dialogue at regional level.

ESF SUPPORT FOR INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY IN LATVIA 2007-2013 Planned actions: Development and implementation of joint/ unified human resources management system in public administration. Improvement of accessibility and quality of public services. Support for increasing of institutional capacity of public administration. Development of cooperation between educational institutions and public administration. The first action includes following measures: Implementation of competence-based approach in human resources management system within state administration; Development and implementation of human resources management IT system at central and local administration level. The second action includes: 1) Implementation of Quality management system in public institutions 2) Increasing of quality of public services 3) Tiesiskā regulējuma radītā administratīvā sloga un administratīvo šķēršļu uzņēmējiem un iedzīvotājiem mazināšana un novēršana. The third action includes: 1) Improvement of policy design, implementation, impact assessment and forecasting methods; 2) Training employees of public administration; 3) Strengthening of administrative capacity of social partners at central and regional level and administrative capacity of civil society; 4) Strengthening of partnership in policy development and policy implementation. The fourth action includes: Development and implementation of conceptual model for education and training of employees of state administration; Strengthening of capacity of State Administration school; Development network and improvement cooperation in-between public administration, higher education institutions, local municipality’s training institution; Improvement of study and training programs; Support to educational institutions and staff.

Thank you for the attention! Finally, we would like to thank the Commission for an initiative to organize this meeting, and we are indeed looking further to extending our discussion and cooperation with regard to this issue in the future.