2022-2026 Strategic Direction
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<strong>Strategic</strong> <strong>Direction</strong><br />
<strong>2022</strong>–<strong>2026</strong>
Table of Contents<br />
I.<br />
II.<br />
III.<br />
IV.<br />
V.<br />
VI.<br />
VII.<br />
VIII.<br />
IX.<br />
X.<br />
4<br />
4<br />
5<br />
6 - 7<br />
8 - 11<br />
12 - 15<br />
16 - 17<br />
18<br />
19<br />
20<br />
21 - 23<br />
Introduction<br />
CEF’s narrative for the region in <strong>2026</strong><br />
Vision and mission<br />
Visual summary of the strategic direction <strong>2022</strong>-<strong>2026</strong><br />
CEF’s value added: know-how on becoming and being a<br />
learning organization<br />
Focus areas of impact<br />
Partnerships<br />
Internal environment<br />
Resources and risks<br />
Monitoring, evaluation and learning<br />
Theory of change and results framework<br />
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I. III.<br />
Introduction<br />
The <strong>Strategic</strong> <strong>Direction</strong> for <strong>2022</strong>–<strong>2026</strong> sets the<br />
CEF’s course for the coming years.<br />
Vision and<br />
mission<br />
The document addresses the CEF’s:<br />
(II) narrative for the region in <strong>2026</strong>;<br />
(III) vision and mission;<br />
(IV) value added: know-how on becoming<br />
and being a learning organization;<br />
(V) focus areas of impact;<br />
(VI) partnerships;<br />
(VII) internal environment;<br />
(VIII) resources and risks;<br />
(IX) monitoring, evaluation and learning; and<br />
(X) the results framework and theory of change.<br />
We started the strategic planning process in January<br />
2020 by developing a narrative about what the<br />
region will look like in <strong>2026</strong> and mapping the capabilities<br />
that individuals and institutions will need. In June,<br />
we presented the background and draft outline to our<br />
Governing Board. In November, we discussed the first<br />
draft of the new strategy with our Advisory Board and<br />
in December, we shared its recommendations together<br />
with the first draft to the Governing Board.<br />
The draft document was discussed with the<br />
Gov erning Board members and CEF Coordinators in<br />
bilateral consultations with interested institutions.<br />
These consultations provided valuable input about<br />
the strategic priorities of CEF member institutions<br />
and how the CEF could work with them to advance<br />
(some of) these priorities.<br />
In addition, bilateral consultations took place with<br />
other partner institutions that contributed to the CEF’s<br />
understanding of priorities in the next years (European<br />
Commission, International Monetary Fund (IMF), ODI,<br />
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development<br />
(OECD), Regional School of Public Administration,<br />
the Energy Community, the European Centre for<br />
Development Policy Management (ECDPM), the Joint<br />
Vienna Institute, the Regional Cooperation Council,<br />
and the Transport Community).<br />
The <strong>Strategic</strong> <strong>Direction</strong> for <strong>2022</strong>–<strong>2026</strong> was confirmed<br />
by the Governing Board on June 8, 2021.<br />
II.<br />
CEF’s<br />
narrative<br />
for the region<br />
in <strong>2026</strong><br />
We envisage that South East Europe (SEE) will be facing<br />
the following trends (opportunities and challenges):<br />
The region is closely connected to the EU and other players engaged<br />
in development cooperation. Countries in the region cooperate<br />
closer too. Brain drain and aging population remain the challenges<br />
that are addressed by targeted policy measures. Economic policies<br />
focus on the recovery from the Covid-19 induced lockdown and on<br />
competitiveness and economic growth. Policymakers are making<br />
a strong effort to improve people’s well-being through improving<br />
public sector services and easing the administrative burden on<br />
economic agents. This is accompanied by digitalization and growth<br />
of the data economy, while cybersecurity and data protection are<br />
becoming even more essential. Due to the pressing environmental<br />
challenges, more attention is given to actions that protect the planet<br />
and address climate changes.<br />
As leaders in learning, our vision is to inspire public<br />
officials, both individuals and teams, to shape<br />
institutional governance that drives successful<br />
economies and fair societies.<br />
Our vision focuses on what we aspire to ultimately<br />
achieve by solving a problem for the greater good.<br />
It also reflects our organizational values (trust,<br />
team spirit, focus on results, accountability, and<br />
opportunity to grow). Through people-centered<br />
learning approaches and know-how of how to<br />
become and be a learning organization (CEF’s<br />
value added) that focus on public officials, teams<br />
and institutional governance of their countries<br />
(the problem), the CEF is striving to ultimately contribute<br />
to improving their economies and societies<br />
(the greater good).<br />
Our mission articulates our purpose — what we do,<br />
whom we serve and how:<br />
We support capacity development of public<br />
officials and their institutions in South East<br />
Europe through learning and knowledge sharing.<br />
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This positive narrative for the region in <strong>2026</strong> provides us with a frame<br />
for better targeting our contribution to the region’s development in the<br />
area of our expertise.<br />
CEF STRATEGIC DIRECTION FOR <strong>2022</strong>–<strong>2026</strong><br />
5
contributing to successful economies<br />
and fair societies<br />
* Serve as leaders in learning<br />
*<br />
Inspire public officials<br />
to shape institutional governance<br />
* For central banks, ministries of finance, tax administrations,<br />
line ministries, and other public organizations<br />
* High-quality and demand driven<br />
* Delivered in classrooms, online or combined<br />
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Visual Summary by Mireille van Bremen, www.thevisualcatalyst.com<br />
7
IV.<br />
CEF’s Value Added:<br />
know-how on becoming<br />
and being a learning<br />
organization<br />
The value added for our constituency<br />
rests on practices that have evolved<br />
over the 20 years since the establishment<br />
of the CEF.<br />
Today, we are a leader in applying people-centered learning<br />
approaches and holding the know-how of becoming and being a<br />
learning organization. We have embraced the philosophy where<br />
people continually expand their capacity to create the results they<br />
truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are<br />
nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people<br />
are continually learning to see the whole together. 1<br />
We respect the existing knowledge in public institutions; organize<br />
knowledge sharing that is upgrading this knowledge and skills; adapt<br />
as we go; and nurture networking and ownership through partnerships<br />
and participation of all learners and knowledge providers.<br />
As a knowledge hub 2 , we are ready to share our expertise in transformation to a learning<br />
organization. Many institutions in our constituency have expressed readiness to invest in<br />
capturing, packaging and sharing knowledge. We will support individuals and institutions<br />
to design and deliver their learning activities by mentoring and coaching them on the learning<br />
design cycle. We will assist institutions in performing knowledge audits, knowledge<br />
gap and social network analyses, based on our own experience in becoming a learning<br />
organization. We will support public officials in becoming knowledge sharing experts.<br />
The model of a learning organization is beneficial for public institutions. Reforms are major<br />
economic and societal changes, and governments have been entrusted with a mandate<br />
to implement these reforms. This puts a high bar on their performance. Institutions are<br />
challenged to be resilient and innovative, and to operate at a low cost. In this light, we see<br />
that public institutions need to — and can — become learning organizations. Practicing<br />
the building blocks of a learning organization will empower public officials as confident<br />
and networked leaders of ideas, people and reforms; teams to achieve results based on<br />
institutional values and collaboration; and public institutions themselves to improve their<br />
overall results.<br />
Our effort to become and be a learning organization has dramatically<br />
strengthened our base, and has eventually led to organizational<br />
growth and an increase in the overall scope, quality and impact of<br />
our activities.<br />
1<br />
Peter M. Senge, 1990. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning<br />
Organization. New York: Doubleday.<br />
2<br />
The World Bank defines knowledge hubs as institutions and networks dedicated to capturing, sharing and<br />
exchanging experiences with national and international partners in order to accelerate development<br />
(Communiqué of the Bali High Level Meeting “Towards Country-led Knowledge Hubs”, July 2012).<br />
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Our methodology 3 of becoming and being a learning organization<br />
involves six building blocks:<br />
GOVERNANCE AND CULTURE:<br />
Being a learning organization means synergy among the CEF governance bodies and staff members. It involves new<br />
attitudes and behaviors: promotion of coaching and mentoring culture, open-minded questioning, thoughtful listening,<br />
consideration of multiple options, and acceptance of opposing points of view.<br />
FUNDS FOR LEARNING AND KNOWLEDGE SHARING:<br />
We allocate an indicative annual budget for learning, used in line with the learning plan of each staff member. We invest<br />
in our physical and online learning spaces. With well-planned resources, learning is an inseparable part of us.<br />
PARTNERSHIPS<br />
We are well connected externally. Through partnerships we improve learning and growth. In implementing our projects,<br />
we think in terms of partners rather than beneficiaries when we collaborate with ministries of finance, line ministries,<br />
tax administrations, central banks, and other institutions. We also facilitate communities of practice and networks.<br />
KNOWLEDGE CAPTURING, PACKAGING AND SHARING<br />
This block is a meeting point between our internal learning and being knowledge provider for others. We often merge<br />
and mix how we learn internally and how we deliver learning as a service. In the internal process, we are continuously<br />
capturing, packaging and sharing the knowledge of our staff members and governance bodies. In the external<br />
process, we capture and curate the knowledge of various institutions and experts, support its packaging, and<br />
integrate it into the learning initiatives through which learners share knowledge and experience in turn.<br />
COMMUNICATION ABOUT LEARNING<br />
We have the skills to tell stories about learning and changes in the region that lead to reforms. We leverage both social<br />
and digital media to share these stories, and integrate them into our future learning initiatives. Our Blog on Learning<br />
has significantly helped us enhance our internal communication flows and capacities. It is a »to-go« place for learning<br />
about learning for external audiences, too.<br />
MONITORING AND EVALUATION<br />
We systematically measure the outcomes of activities and explore the causal chain that links investment in learning<br />
and knowledge sharing to newly emerging ideas and changes. Our Value Creation Stories give voice to learners to<br />
self-reflect and articulate the benefits of their learning. And we use feedback from the post-event surveys in our next<br />
program planning and delivery (see Chapter IX).<br />
3<br />
Inspired by the World Bank's eight pillars of the knowledge sharing capabilities framework (Steffen S. Janus, 2016.<br />
Becoming a Knowledge-Sharing Organization. Washington, DC: The World Bank).<br />
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V.<br />
Focus areas<br />
of impact<br />
Putting the learner at the<br />
center of our activities is<br />
essential in our work.<br />
We aim to make things happen together,<br />
adapting flexibly and innovatively to the<br />
changes we notice in our environment, the<br />
learning needs we capture, and the feedback<br />
we receive. To better understand our target<br />
audiences, we will carry out deeper analysis<br />
of the data we have on different audiences to<br />
learn more about their work, aspirations and<br />
needs to ultimately provide them with better<br />
learning experiences.<br />
TARGET AUDIENCES<br />
Our geographic focus will extend to countries of the European Neighborhood<br />
and other regions where we can share the knowledge and<br />
expertise of our constituency.<br />
Ministries of finance, central banks and tax administrations in our<br />
constituency will remain our primary target audience. Together, we<br />
will continue to include other public sector institutions (secondary<br />
target audience), especially line ministries, and gradually also subnational<br />
levels of governments. To effectively support audiences at<br />
subnational levels, we will primarily focus on partnerships with regional<br />
and sectoral platforms and networks.<br />
SUCCESSFUL REFORMS<br />
We see successful reforms and changes being implemented where<br />
knowledge is shared top-down and bottom-up. Within their respective<br />
mandates, our primary target audience regulates, enables,<br />
guides and challenges the work of other public sector institutions<br />
top-down. In close cooperation with CEF Coordinators and affiliated<br />
experts, we will further develop our support in developing their<br />
capabilities to carry out these functions 4 . In close cooperation with<br />
experts from our constituency, we will support our secondary target<br />
audience in informing, coordinating, planning and implementing<br />
their mandates 5 .<br />
We will review the capacity development needs of our target audience<br />
with a focus on different functions that public officials are<br />
engaged in, e.g., policy-making, operating or supporting functions.<br />
Our functional focus will be driven by our own capacity to respond to<br />
the needs of the primary target audience in specific areas. As part<br />
of our programming cycle, we will systematically and regularly review<br />
our functional focus, updating the list of prioritized functions in line<br />
with newly evolving needs of the CEF constituency.<br />
4<br />
For example, we will provide training-of-trainers and<br />
promote organizational knowledge sharing (know-how on<br />
how to become and be a learning organization).<br />
5<br />
For example, we will support line ministries in developing<br />
their financial management function and coordination<br />
of structural reforms.<br />
Our focus will expand from promoting learning and knowledge<br />
sharing at the level of individual officials to teams and institutions.<br />
We will promote links between different learning initiatives and institutions,<br />
and intensify the involvement of officials and our staff in<br />
sharing their knowledge. Our learning and knowledge sharing initiatives<br />
will continue to be anchored also in the technical challenges<br />
that individuals, teams and institutions are facing. We will upgrade<br />
our certification programs, and promote the recognition of our program<br />
activities as continuous professional development.<br />
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THEMATIC FOCUSES<br />
We will review our thematic focus areas—<br />
leadership for managing reforms, public<br />
financial management, tax policy and administration,<br />
central banking, and data and<br />
analysis for designing policies—to ensure<br />
that they are in line with the main trends that<br />
will affect our constituency (particularly in<br />
the post-Covid-19 circumstances) and their<br />
reforms in the coming years. We will continue<br />
to connect the different thematic areas in our<br />
learning and knowledge sharing activities.<br />
We will link our thematic focuses and projects more explicitly to the strategic goals of<br />
the CEF constituency. By developing capacity across different thematic areas, we will work<br />
toward the following intermediate outcomes:<br />
• Enhanced foresight and strategic planning<br />
• Strengthened medium-term expenditure frameworks<br />
• Improved fiscal risks management<br />
• Well-integrated planning and budgeting of public expenditure<br />
• Enhanced budget transparency and disclosure<br />
• Improved financial management and control systems<br />
• Stronger internal and external audit mechanisms<br />
• Improved public sector accounting and financial reporting<br />
• Stronger cooperation against corruption and lack of transparency<br />
• More resilient financial systems and economic environment<br />
• Enhanced compilation of high-quality macro-economic statistics<br />
• Strengthened data gathering and analysis<br />
• Better informed decision-making<br />
• Enhanced inter-governmental policy coordination and collaboration<br />
• Public officials as confident and networked leaders<br />
• Enhanced internal communication and cooperation within institutions<br />
• Knowledge sharing and learning culture within public administration<br />
• Knowledge-centered, resilient and innovative public institutions<br />
These intermediate outcomes contribute to four higher-level outcomes: increased trust in<br />
public institutions; better implemented policies; more efficient and effective operations;<br />
and enhanced capacity development, knowledge sharing and cooperation. Our focus will<br />
gradually move from organizing CEF-led learning and knowledge sharing initiatives to supporting<br />
more initiatives organized and facilitated by CEF constituent institutions.<br />
Our program will be implemented through innovative, multi-year capacity development projects,<br />
in close cooperation with a growing number of knowledge partners, and in synergy<br />
with related capacity development initiatives carried out in the region. In the context of<br />
international development cooperation, we will align our work with the 2030 Agenda to<br />
reach the Sustainable Development Goals, especially goal 16 (peace, justice and strong<br />
institutions) and goal 17 (partnerships for the goals).<br />
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VI.<br />
Partnerships<br />
We will be an inclusive<br />
and trusted partner that<br />
will systematically maintain<br />
dialogue and cooperation.<br />
We will continue to nourish partnerships with<br />
a wide range of organizations and experts:<br />
international financial institutions, global and<br />
regional international organizations, peer institutions,<br />
governments in their capacities of<br />
donors and recipients of official development<br />
assistance (ODA), professional organizations,<br />
independent oversight bodies, non-governmental<br />
organizations, and individual experts.<br />
With our multifaceted partnerships, we will<br />
achieve interconnected goals: governance<br />
that encourages inclusive and collaborative<br />
environment and helps us achieve our mandate<br />
— governance-related partnerships;<br />
sustainable financing and appropriate diversification<br />
of donors — donor-related partnerships;<br />
and promotion of regional and global<br />
expertise that contributes to the relevance<br />
and ownership of our learning and networking<br />
program — knowledge-sharing partnerships.<br />
Our partners’ roles are in many instances overlapping and may cover<br />
one or more modes of cooperation with the CEF. Each partnership<br />
has its own unique elements; however, we will continue to be driven<br />
by the impact that we generate together in pursuing common goals.<br />
We will use our agile governance structure as a platform for the<br />
CEF, our member countries, their participating institutions, and partners<br />
in attaining synergies in capacity development, funding and<br />
avoiding duplications in ODA implementation.<br />
We will stay open for new membership by constituency countries<br />
(Kosovo, Serbia, Turkey), EU neighborhood countries (e.g., Georgia),<br />
and other interested countries. We will put effort to encourage those<br />
who have not yet ratified the Agreement on Establishing the CEF<br />
(Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia) to do so. We will continue a proactive<br />
and generative dialogue with our Governing Board. We will in<br />
particular focus on Governing Board member institutions’ strategic<br />
capacity development (the needed technical skills and the enabling<br />
environment) and advancing CEF’s agenda by supporting CEF’s<br />
fundraising with relevant donors.<br />
We will continue to develop our network of Coordinators. Through<br />
them, we will also raise awareness of the importance of individual<br />
and institutional capacity development. The Advisory Board will be<br />
closely involved in providing guidance to CEF’s program development<br />
and implementation. We will consider adding new partners,<br />
while still keeping it small in size and operational in approach.<br />
We will continue to provide a platform for donors’ coordination,<br />
dialogue and visibility. This aims at synergies towards increased<br />
efficiency, sustainability of development cooperation, and avoidance<br />
of overlapping. We will coordinate our partners in the process<br />
of our (bi)annual program planning and communication on the<br />
specific inputs necessary for the program delivery. We will make<br />
an additional effort to increase the sustainability of funding (see<br />
Chapter VIII) and to ensure the diversity of donors.<br />
We work with a number of institutions and external experts that<br />
cooperate with the CEF in designing and delivering our learning<br />
program. We will continue to enhance the involvement of regional<br />
experts to be more relevant, promote ownership and support constituency<br />
institutions in their knowledge management efforts and<br />
outside acknowledgment of their expertise. We will deepen collaboration<br />
and increase the number of affiliated experts that contribute<br />
to the projects, activities and learning methodologies. In addition to IMF regional advisors<br />
for public financial management and revenue administration, a regional advisor for banking<br />
regulation and supervision is planned to be placed at the CEF, who will deliver technical<br />
assistance in SEE and cooperate with the CEF in delivering joint capacity development<br />
initiatives.<br />
Furthermore, we will widen partnerships with experts in topics recognized as strategic:<br />
post-Covid-19 financial recovery, green financing and digitalization. We will also continue<br />
to work on being a visible leader in regional cooperation by strengthening cooperation with<br />
regional institutions, such as the Regional Cooperation Council, the Regional School of<br />
Public Administration and the Joint Vienna Institute.<br />
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VII.<br />
Internal<br />
environment<br />
VIII.<br />
Resources<br />
and risks<br />
CEF governance, organizational structure and work distribution will continue to<br />
be determined by our vision, mission and values. To allow the best use of human<br />
resources, we will organically and incrementally adapt our structure in line with the<br />
available resources and the external environment. We will continue developing a<br />
culture based on principles, conducive to sharing ideas, experiences and lessons<br />
learned.<br />
We will promote flexible work environment. We will continue to adjust our office<br />
spaces to stimulate focus, inspire collaboration, and reflect our evolving organizational<br />
culture. Offices will be assigned and equipped according to this purpose.<br />
Physical learning space positively impacts the learning outcomes of the participants.<br />
That is why we will continuously invest in equipping our classrooms with<br />
modern modular equipment adaptable to the needs of different types of learners<br />
and knowledge sharing modalities.<br />
To ensure that our physical space remains a pleasant and relaxed place conducive<br />
to working and learning, we will continue teaming up with experts in adult learning<br />
and interior design.<br />
We will continue to invest in our online learning platforms, the Online Learning<br />
Campus in particular. We will upgrade technical features for better user experience,<br />
enhance facilitation skills for digital environment, and deepen our understanding<br />
of e-learning methodologies.<br />
We will further develop our unique hybrid learning model tailored to our participants’<br />
needs. Hybrid learning engages participants in a classroom and remotely at<br />
the same time. Since the outbreak of Covid-19, we have recognized hybrid learning<br />
as an essential element in ensuring the continuity of our operations and organizational<br />
resilience. Our first attempts with hybrid events showed that creating such a<br />
learning space requires investment in hardware and adaptation in the way we work.<br />
The number of CEF staff and the volume of our services will broadly<br />
remain unchanged and will follow the demand and available financial<br />
resources.<br />
We will continue to pay high attention to interrelation between available<br />
financial and human resources (both in volume and composition),<br />
and realistic expectations and commitment in this regard.<br />
We will maintain a diversity of donors that contribute to CEF’s funding,<br />
while working to ensure longer-term (multi-year) financing. We<br />
are aware that particularly bilateral donors can provide (bi)annual<br />
contracts; however, the CEF will seek to engage donors that are able<br />
to commit funds on a multi-year basis. We will encourage CEF members<br />
to dedicate parts of their ODA through the CEF. We will also<br />
continue to advocate in-kind contributions by members and other<br />
partners through provision of their expertise, in particular by those<br />
coming from the SEE.<br />
Risk management is an important area that we will continue to<br />
develop. Internal risk management function will remain an essential<br />
tool for supporting our decision-making. We will be regularly identifying,<br />
assessing and mitigating risks across organizational streams<br />
and projects through our in-house risk register. We will increase the<br />
consistency of risk register data entry and enhance the register’s<br />
utility.<br />
We will continue to develop a cloud-based infrastructure by using public service<br />
providers through the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model (e.g., Gecko, 4th Office),<br />
and introduce others, as needed.<br />
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IX.<br />
Monitoring,<br />
evaluation<br />
and learning<br />
X.<br />
Theory of<br />
change<br />
To monitor and evaluate our work, we set targets in a pragmatic and flexible way.<br />
For our annual learning and knowledge sharing program, we frame the scope of<br />
activities and set priorities. We develop project-related results frameworks, specific<br />
objectives for each activity and performance standards. Furthermore, we link our<br />
annual performance plans to those targets at the institutional, team and personal<br />
levels. Among our target audiences, we nurture co-ownership of the targets that we<br />
set. As part of monitoring the risks, we regularly reassess those targets and adapt<br />
as needed to achieve them.<br />
We use a wide range of quantitative indicators to demonstrate the value that we<br />
create, such as participation statistics and event surveys, complemented by qualitative<br />
information gathered in exchange with the key stakeholders. We will invest<br />
into more consultations with the key officials from our constituency to gain a deeper<br />
understanding of individual learners’ motivation and technical challenges. We will<br />
also strengthen the usage of qualitative and quantitative data to monitor the implementation<br />
of activities, projects and objectives, evaluate performance, and identify<br />
other areas where we add value.<br />
In promoting a learning culture, we value open and direct feedback and develop<br />
processes to loop the lessons learned back into improving our daily work and<br />
reviewing our strategic direction. We pay special attention to unaddressed learning<br />
needs, opportunities for knowledge sharing, and how new knowledge has been<br />
applied. We will improve our quality assurance by reviewing quality indicators and<br />
using new technical solutions to gather and analyze them.<br />
Individual learners and the technical challenges they need and want to address are our<br />
starting points for the positive change and reforms that we support in our constituency. To<br />
capture the given and needed knowledge, we listen, observe and study future trends affecting<br />
our constituency (see Chapter II). We will continue to capture how these trends evolve.<br />
We will assess how they affect the specific skills and knowledge that our target audiences<br />
need and provide opportunities for enabling changes and reform processes through learning<br />
and knowledge sharing.<br />
We enable change and reforms through six building blocks of value added in promoting<br />
adult learning and knowledge sharing (see Chapter IV). In cooperation with knowledge<br />
providers and learners, we design and deliver a high-quality and demand-driven program,<br />
which contains innovative and people-focused learning and knowledge sharing initiatives.<br />
The program applies a wide range of modalities; it is delivered in physical, virtual and hybrid<br />
learning spaces, and promotes learning and knowledge exchange at the global, regional<br />
and country levels. We work directly with institutions in developing an enabling environment<br />
for knowledge sharing and learning.<br />
Our strategic objective is to serve as leaders in learning and to inspire public officials as<br />
individuals and teams to shape institutional governance. The overall impact that we aspire<br />
through our work is contribution to the development of successful economies and fair societies<br />
in our constituency. For that purpose, we focus our support on achieving a range of<br />
intermediate and higher-level outcomes (see Chapter V).<br />
The highest value lies in our staff that contributes to work results. We will establish<br />
more direct lines between individual staff member work and the organization’s<br />
mission by implementing a continuous performance management system. This<br />
approach will allow for better alignment with our mission, increase transparency,<br />
ownership and effectiveness, and reduce duplication of efforts. It will also help us<br />
constantly learn and develop the way we work.<br />
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CEF STRATEGIC DIRECTION FOR <strong>2022</strong>–<strong>2026</strong><br />
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Results<br />
framework<br />
TRANSFORMATIONAL VALUE<br />
REALIZED VALUE<br />
Inspiration to (re)shape institutional governance<br />
OVERALL IMPACT<br />
Successful economies and fair societies of our constituency<br />
HIGHER LEVEL OUTCOMES<br />
Completed reforms; revised strategic goals;<br />
improved systems, processes, and capabilities;<br />
changed regulation etc.<br />
• Increased trust in public institutions<br />
• More efficient and effective operations<br />
• Improved implementation of policies<br />
• Enhanced capacity development,<br />
knowledge sharing, and cooperation<br />
APPLIED VALUE<br />
INTERMEDIARY OUTCOMES<br />
• Good practice of peers applied<br />
• New cooperation<br />
• Reform steps completed<br />
• Further learning<br />
• Knowledge shared<br />
• Better-informed decisions<br />
• Revised/new processes, approaches,<br />
guidelines, manuals, templates, rules, etc.<br />
POTENTIAL / IMMEDIATE VALUE<br />
• Enhanced foresight and strategic planning<br />
• Strengthened medium-term expenditure<br />
frameworks<br />
• Improved fiscal risk management<br />
• Enhanced budget transparency and disclosure<br />
• Improved financial management and<br />
control systems<br />
• Stronger internal and external audit<br />
mechanisms<br />
• Improved public sector accounting and<br />
financial reporting<br />
• Stronger cooperation against corruption and<br />
lack of transparency<br />
• More resilient financial systems and economic<br />
environments<br />
OUTPUTS<br />
• Enhanced compilation of high-quality<br />
macro-economic statistics<br />
• Strengthened data gathering and analysis<br />
• Informed decision making<br />
• Enhanced inter-governmental policy<br />
coordination and collaboration<br />
• Public officials as confident and networked<br />
leaders<br />
• Well-integrated planning and budgeting of<br />
public expenditure<br />
• Enhanced internal communication and<br />
cooperation<br />
• Stronger knowledge sharing and learning<br />
culture<br />
• Knowledge-centered, resilient and innovative<br />
public institutions<br />
Potential: Knowledge, skills, networks, contacts;<br />
new ideas and tools; motivation/access to learn<br />
more; enhanced trust, motivation, confidence<br />
Immediate: Rewarding, feel-good learning<br />
experience, reassurance/acknowledgement;<br />
feedback; achievement; etc.<br />
Capacity development activities of the CEF Learning and Knowledge Sharing Program<br />
• High-quality and demand-driven<br />
• Two-year; rolled-over annually<br />
• People-focused, innovative<br />
• Global, regional and country-specific<br />
• Variety of learning formats and modalities<br />
• Physical, virtual and hybrid spaces for<br />
knowledge sharing and learning<br />
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CEF STRATEGIC DIRECTION FOR <strong>2022</strong>–<strong>2026</strong><br />
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CEF is international organization with the mission to support<br />
capacity development of public officials and their institutions<br />
in South East Europe through learning and knowledge<br />
sharing. We are a leader in applying people-centered learning<br />
approaches and holding the know-how of becoming and<br />
being a learning organization. We work with our constituency<br />
to support their public financial management, tax policy<br />
and administration, and central banking reform efforts.<br />
Center of Excellence in Finance (CEF)<br />
Cankarjeva 18<br />
SI-1000 Ljubljana<br />
Slovenia<br />
T.: +386 1 369 6190<br />
info@cef-see.org<br />
www.cef-see.org<br />
Follow the CEF on<br />
Published by: Center of Excellence in Finance | Production editor: Tina agar | Text editor: Kadri Põdra<br />
Design, Illustrations & Visual Summary: Mireille van Bremen, www.thevisualcatalyst.com | Printing: Tiskarna Januš | September 2021