Year: 2014

Through the analysis „Employment in Montenegrin municipalities – merit or party based?“, Institute Alternative continues monitoring of the implementation of public administration reform in Montenegro, focusing on the local level, after publishing of several publications and monitoring reports dealing with reform processes in state administration bodies. The analysis has been prepared within the project „Corruption at the local level – zero tolerance!”, and the project focused on identification of the key issues at the local level in the areas of high risk for corruption.

The starting point are key challenges for the reform of civil service at the local level, followed by the analysis of the problems Montenegrin municipalities are facing in human resource management. In accordance with the framework of the project, special attention was given to the capacities for management of human resources in 14 municipalities. In order to throw light on the dynamics of local government reform, key strategic documents and legislative framework regulating the field of the civil service system in Montenegro have been analyzed. Information about the number of employees at the local level, as well as the decisions on employment/recruitment of local servants and employees in 2013 have been collected through free access to information requests. The overview of non-transparent recruitment practices at the local level has been done based on the analysis of newspaper articles published during 2013 and 2014.

Additional sources of information used were opinions of the local civil servants and councilors, as well as representatives of non-governmental sector, collected during fourteen consultative trainings in the Municipalities that were subject of the research, as well as during the panel discussion „Preconditions for transparent recruitment at the local level“, held on June 17, 2014 in Kolašin.

Our new policy brief brings an insight into whether Montenegro is preparing for providing non-military, civilian contribution to peacekeeping.

The term civilian capacities (CivCap), as understood in the brief, includes civilians and other non-military personnel that participate in peace-building and state building missions, including the police and civilians in military missions.

This paper provides an overview of the current state of affairs when it comes to Montenegro’s capacities and institutional set-up for civilian peace operations.

Montenegro is at the very start of developing its policy in the area of civilian participation in the peace support missions (CivCap). It currently participates in several peace support missions, under UN, NATO and EU auspices, almost exclusively with armed troops. The police is starting to deploy its officers to missions, the civil protection units have not yet been formed and representatives of other institutions have so far not participated in missions. With NATO membership as a key goal, Montenegro has started to conduct activities aimed at establishing CIVCAP, as one of the required steps in the integration process. The process has not yet been institutionalized, but there seems to be a will in the administration that CIVCAP should be developed. The process is quite challenging for a small state with limited capacities and strong donor support for initial steps is crucial for its success. At the end of the paper, recommendations for concrete steps to take in order to develop the CivCap system are given.

This policy brief is a product of cooperation with the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), in the framework of a regional research initiative „Western Balkans Civilian Capacities in Peace Operations“, supported by the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.