Local/Regional Economic Development in South ... - Value Chains

7
.9 Economic Development in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) –
Integrated Experts (CIM) in Cantonal Economic Promotion
Alexander Märdian
Short description of the approach
The Centre for International Migration and Development
(CIM – www.cimonline.de) places successful applicants
as so-called integrated experts in developing and transition
countries. The integrated expert signs a contract with
a local employer and is paid the usual local salary. CIM
tops up that salary. The average deployment in the country
is four years. Within the system of German Development
Cooperation, CIM is a small, flexible organization;
the working partnership has two strong members:
the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit
(GTZ) GmbH and the German Federal Employment
Agency (BA); the proficiencies of the two complement
each other.
Since February 2003, an integrated expert has been working
in the cantonal government of the Canton of Zenica-
Doboj in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The
canton is one of ten largely independent administrative
units (constitution, parliament, ministries) within the
Federation.
Before the expert was deployed, there had been no targeted
measures by the cantonal government to promote
economic development.
The integrated expert, together with local colleagues from
the Canton’s Economics Ministry, was to assist the government
in developing and implementing economic development
measures. There was no existing concept for this.
On the basis of a concept drafted by the integrated expert
and staff of the cantonal Ministry of Economics, the Business
Service Center (BSC) was founded and built up in
mid-2004 as the economic promotion agency of the cantonal
government. The BSC is a public corporation and,
like the ministries, is one of the canton’s administrative
units (www.zdk.ba).
Because of the administrative fragmentation in the Federation
of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), it was necessary
to bundle responsibilities in the area of economic
promotion at the regional level. The organizational form
as an administrative unit of the cantonal government was
chosen in order to ensure the canton’s support and to provide
the opportunity to directly influence the design and
application of legal regulations in areas relevant to the
economy.
Project implementation
First, a study was undertaken to identify the key obstacles
to an economic revival of the region (approx. 400,000 residents,
3,750 square km, 12 municipalities, approx. 9,000
economic units) and the opportunities to overcome these
obstacles through an assignment with a local employer.
Because there was no economic promotion in the real
sense of the word, it was possible to persuade the cantonal
government (with delays due to a change of government)
to found and build up its own economic development
agency, the Business Service Center.
In setting up the BSC, special care was taken that the personnel
(currently 5 staff members and one integrated expert)
were independently selected on the basis of transparent
criteria and that the responsibilities of the BSC were
clearly stipulated beforehand. The BSC reports directly to
the cabinet of the Prime Minister (of the canton) and is
headed by the integrated expert.
The BSC consists of the One-Stop-Shop (to support firms
in administrative procedures), Information & Services (for
information and initial advice to local firms, development
of economic promotion projects, regional marketing and
acquisitions, as well as support for foreign investors). The
services of the BSC are free.
Besides the development of market-appropriate services
for businesspersons, networking with cantonal ministries
and the economic departments in the municipalities and
training of local staff are important to the success of this
agency.
In addition to the operational activity of the OSS (support
for completion of permit procedures), the OSS also
drew up proposals for the simplification of administrative
procedures and for legal changes and implemented them
through the cantonal government.
Impact
Services offered by the BSC are in high demand from the
business sector (500 clients in the first business year). The
successes of the work are apparent and have meant that
the agency is viewed as a model for economic promotion
in the FBiH. Other administrations in Bosnia and Herzegovina
are very interested in setting up BSCs. A BSC was
already founded in Mostar.
On the basis of the practical experience with administrative
procedures (OSS), numerous proposals for simplifi-