The six-day programme offered the participants a cutting-edge knowledge of administrative and political developments and dynamics of the region and EU. The fellows had the chance to discuss their plans for their fellowship, receive individual advice, present their professional and personal goals and prepare themselves for the fellowship programme. The introductory seminar also served as a platform for discussion of current political and social challenges and for an exchange of ideas.

In conducting the seminar, the European Fund for the Balkans cooperated with the academic partners from the “Potsdam Center for Policy and Management” (PCPM) at the University of Potsdam, one of the leading competence centres for governance and the public sector in Germany. PCPM’s contribution to the seminar helped the fellows to have a “good start” into their fellowship through a variety of topics with a focus on public administration and public sector reform, offering various tools to ensure training and learning effectiveness.

This first phase was focused on developing the skills and knowledge transfer. The knowledge-based part of the programme reviewed topics from the perspective of the seminar’s host country, yet included a level of analysis aiming beyond just the “German case”. The participants were introduced to complex public management challenges like performance management, public administration reform and innovation, recruitment challenges and talent retention.

The skills training sessions in this seminar included presentation skills, employing the Fellows’ individual presentations as “practice cases”. Other workshop sessions introduced Presenting with Impact and Change Management, as well as Intercultural Training.

After the wrap-up of the Introductory Seminar, the Fellows are spending their two months fellowship in the respective EU host ministries, ending the programme with the Final Seminar held in Thessaloniki in November.

This year also marks the final edition of the programme – a decision that was taken after a detailed previous strategy and evaluation exercises. The next period will be reserved for focusing on the lessons learned and gathering the feedback from the Fellows, as an offical wrap-up of this decade long capacity-building programme of the Fund.

Related to this you can watch HERE the latest video that was produced by the Serbia’s Public Broadcaster RTS, which is focused on the overall experience of the Fellows from Serbia that have been part of the programme’s previous editions.

Original Source: https://www.balkanfund.org/fellowship-programme-for-government-officials-from-the-western-balkans-supporting-excellence-and-leadership-in-governance/