Memorandum of Understanding on the establishment of the Public Administration Reform Fund

The public administration in Bosnia and Herzegovina is known to be large, complex and with often overlapping competences and duplications of functions and an unclear division of responsibilities across the various levels of governments. The country's administrative structures need to be strengthened substantially in order to be able to respond effectively to the requirements of the EU integration process. The process of reforming the public administration lacks the necessary political support needed to modernise the administrations not only for EU integration purposes but primarily in order to meet the expectations of its citizens and businesses.

The system of a country's public administration is not subject of the EU acquis, but administrative improvements are one of the key factors for a successful EU integration process for the public administration needs to function upon the principles of professionalism, accountability, political neutrality, efficiency and effectiveness in order for the country to be able to assume the obligations of membership.

The EU has therefore supported primarily the key institution for the reform process – the Public Administration Reform Coordinator's Office, but also the processes of civil service reform and human resource management, e-Government, strategic planning and policy coordination, public financial management, public procurement and anti-corruption, in particular by strengthening the institutions, providing policy advice and enabling skills- and capacity building of civil servants active in these areas.