Functional Review of the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This vertical review of the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning aims to improve the Ministry’s performance in the medium-term. To achieve this goal, it sets out a framework of changes that can be implemented in the short-term (1-2 years) and in the medium-term (3-5 years) period. The summary of all recommendations is provided in Section IV of this report. Considerations during the whole project execution are based on the Kosovo Government’s current priorities and strategies. Actions are recommended to contribute to the Government’s goals to become a member of the European Union and at the same time retain the national socio-economic growth within the principles of sustainable development. MESP has a formal mandate that defines its respective competencies, portfolio and functions. These are established by law and, in general, reasonably reflect the responsibilities expected. Some difficulties appear through the gap between the legally defined functions, i.e. administrative work to be executed - and the functions actually discharged, e.g.: - Cooperation among the line ministries - ministries tackling environmental issues are institutionalized through the ad-hoc working groups to solve particular agenda. However the Advisory Board for Protection of Environment in Government - an official decision-facilitating inter-ministerial body – is not approved yet by the Assembly of Republic of Kosovo (despite the provision of the actual Law on Environment Protection). - Fund for environmental protection (so called Eko Fund), is mostly financial instrument for improving the environmental infrastructure country-wide but is not yet functioning despite it being stated in the Law on Environmental Protection. Major deficiencies have been identified at the Inspectorate for Environment and Water. There are a very low number of genuinely professional environmental inspectors. In addition, there is a lack of respective legislation, applicable working methodology, relevant environmental standards and proper coordination of their activities as well enforcements processes. Modern enforcement concepts and standards, although envisaged by the promulgated primary legislation, are not yet in use. Also in Kosovo, there is an increasing need for unified environmental standards, harmonised procedures and compatible technical solutions which are also not adopted yet. Although all the fundamental institutional elements of a regular environmental and spatial planning administration system are present, the environmental administration is still undersized and under-skilled for the challenges it will have to face. The existing legal provisions reflect concern for the basic functions identified in today’s EU. However, for default-proof, client-friendly and internationally recognised yet cost-efficient delivery, the MESP needs to be organised more purposefully, fully covering both the core and supportive functions of the central administration. It is widely known that a multidisciplinary sector requires an enormous effort of strategic planning and coordination. Without due coordinating mechanisms, the administrative system for environment and spatial planning cannot function effectively. Unfortunately, the effective horizontal communication and topbottom planning approach are still missing. Noticeable huge effort was undertaken in the policy area. Several strategy documents have been produced (some of them by the foreign experts or under their supervision), e.g. Kosovo Environment Action Plan 2006-2010 (KEAP) bringing comprehensive list of priority projects spread over all significant areas of environment interest. Then project list within the European Partnership Action Plan (EPAP) is derived from the KEAP and can easily choose the proper projects and realize them. Among other documents which should be mentioned include: the Environment and Spatial Planning section of the Program of the Government of Republic of Kosovo 2008 – 2011; Sectoral Strategy for Spatial Planning 2007 – 2013 and Business Plan for the Kosovo Cadastral Agency 2009 - 2014 are of high value. However other environmental sectors, i.e. Water and Wastewater Management, Solid Waste Management, Air Quality, Nature Conservation and Biodiversity Protection etc. are still without definition of clear vision, mission and values. 5
Performance results are less satisfactory in the legislative field. Primary legislation is gradually being adopted by amending the former UNMIK regulations using TA from the international donors. Whilst this has advanced in the sense that it is progressing towards European harmonisation, the secondary legislation is lagging badly behind. This lag blocks implementation of modern administrative tools for environment protection country-wide. The interdependence in the environment sector is growing fast. In the EU the number of common, supranational environmental regulations has grown to a considerable number and the acquis comprises 145 legislative acts to date. The comparable amount in Kosovo is 15 promulgated environmental laws and 66 issued by-laws. It does not necessarily mean that Kosovo should approximate all this legislation in short term rather the purpose is to demonstrate the volume of work and show where Kosovo is in respect to that. The gap between duties and actual accomplishment of the administration becomes understandable from the analysis of the human resource provisions in the environment and spatial planning sectors. There is a significant gap between the number of posts implicitly expected from the provisions of the particular legislation and the number of posts actually filled. For example, insufficient professional staff at the Department of Environment Protection in waste, especially nature protection sectors, in the Water Department and limited staff in both Departments for Spatial Planning as well Housing and Construction. The benchmarking analysis has shown that some other European countries have significantly higher numbers compared to the corresponding Kosovo administrative levels. There appeared a general lack of information on expenditure of the departmental and lower level units of the MESP administration. No administrative unit was able to provide either a coherent outline of yearly budget or more detailed information to calculate human resources or operative expenses. The reason for this lies, probably, in the inadequate budgeting process, but also in the general administrative tradition. Similar could be stated regarding human resource management. During the implementation of the reviews of ministries in Kosovo arose the request to transfer the Kosovo Cadastral Agency (KCA) under the responsibility of the MESP. This recommendation is mainly due the close interrelation between spatial / land use planning and land registration. Transfer of the KCA into the MESP organizational portfolio will significantly increase the quality of land use planning and enable the closer essential cooperation with the sector of agriculture and forestry. 6
Page 1 and 2: Functional Review and Institutional
Page 3: ABBREVIATIONS ACDEI - Agency for Co
Page 7 and 8: This survey did not included the en
Page 9 and 10: The above-mentioned mandate require
Page 11 and 12: SECTION II: CROSS-CUTTING FINDINGS
Page 13 and 14: Coordinating internal policies prep
Page 15 and 16: and summed up for the whole ministr
Page 17 and 18: The common duration of an employmen
Page 19 and 20: SECTION III. RECOMMENDATIONS REGARD
Page 21 and 22: determine the charges for public ut
Page 23 and 24: SPATIAL PLANNING / HOUSING AND CONS
Page 25 and 26: SECTION IV. SUMMARY AND SEQUENCING
Page 27 and 28: ANNEX 1. PROPOSED MESP STRUCTURE Ma
Page 29 and 30: D Dep. State Secretary D.1. Investm
Page 31 and 32: ANNEX 3: LIST OF INTERVIEWS AND MEE
Page 33 and 34: 14. On Package and dump package 15.
Page 35: REFERENCES 1. Environmental Strateg

Functional Review of the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning

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