Functional Review of the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning

INTRODUCTION
Kosovo has inherited a large number of environmental problems accumulated over decades of uncontrolled
use of natural and mineral resources, industrial production coupled with high level of pollution. There is also
alack of appropriate policies, laws and relevant institutions to actually treat and solve these problems. This
has resulted in a clearly visible degraded environment, in some cases even un-repairable, which can have a
direct negative impact in the health of the population.
Taking these issues into the account, as well matters raised in other reports, places a requirement on the
MESP to:
complete the legal infrastructure;
establish competent authorities on central and regional / local level;
ensure support of major policy documents;
establish efficient sectoral policies.
This present report is the outcome of the activity Vertical Functional Review of the Ministry of Environment
and Spatial Planning (MESP) carried out under the project Functional Review and Institutional Design of
Ministries (FRIDOM), implemented in the framework of the public administration reform in Kosovo and
financed by the UK’s DFID.
Review activities took place from June - September 2009 with the agreed objectives of:
analysing the functional capacities of the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning;
preparing an appropriately prioritised set of recommendations regarding rationalisation and
reorganisation of the functional capacities and resources taking into account prevailing governmental
expenditure constraints.
The high level officials at the MESP, all directors of the existing departments, CEOs of the Agencies as well
directors of the Institutes under the responsibility of the MESP and some heads of influential divisions have
been surveyed systematically through structured interviews. A comprehensive scrutiny of the existing relevant
primary and secondary legislation and other official strategic documents has also been reviewed.
Benchmarking comparisons were made against a number of smaller European countries including Finland,
Lithuania and Slovenia. The Ministries of Environment and Spatial Planning / Housing function effectively in
these countries.
An examination of the overall functional arrangements is more than desirable. This is due to the many
disturbances in the public administration system in recent years, the relatively recent origins of the entire
Kosovo legal and administrative framework and the fact that the environmental protection and management
as an administrative task is in itself relatively new and fast changing.
The objective of the functional review and institutional audit of the Ministry of Environment and Spatial
Planning is:
to evaluate the existing organisation structure based on the functions currently covered (in the case of
missing functions, that should be covered) and which are peculiar for the MESP;
analyzing its achievements based on its objectives and its impact on the functioning of MESP and its
effectiveness of achieving strategic plans, with the view to streamlining the reform process;
to make concrete recommendations for improving the efficiency of the MESP in implementing its
action plans and sector strategies;
to make detailed, appropriately prioritised, recommendations for improvement of institutional
structures through the addition or elimination of functions specific to individual policy areas, and
if required, recommend restructuring the way in which the necessary functions are organized.
Essentially the quantitative data and the qualitative information were collected from structured interviews with
MESP officials at all levels as well strategy documents and approved budgets. Government documents such
as legislative acts were downloaded from the Kosovo Assembly official web page.
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