INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY FOR PUBLIC GOVERNANCE

Type of project: Pilot project for capacity building
Target group: Law-makers, employees of national, regional and local administration, community leaders, employees of governmental agencies, media, politicians, and citizens.
Explanation of need for this project: Analysis of current social environment in Bulgaria conducted by our foundation indicates that Bulgarian social system represented by:

• Current governance culture
• Current political culture
• Current national & local legislation
• State of the media as a corrective
• State of citizens’ participation in decision-making process

DOES NOT allow the competitiveness, which Bulgarian society needs in today’s global world.

• The actual social system in Bulgaria is producing a public product of low quality, which is directed mainly to serve personal and party interests.

• As a result, Bulgarian quality of life does not correspond to the European social model and the European standards.

• The system does not provide a ground for competitiveness, which is critical in the era of globalization. Today, every Bulgarian citizen is competing with citizens of countries with flexible economies based on knowledge and high technologies.  

• If the system is not adapted to higher criteria, having into account the investment pressure (outside and inside the country), we can expect that the individual prosperity of Bulgarian middle class citizens will become lower and lower. Their existence will be exclusively oriented towards satisfying basic needs, in a repulsive material and psychological environment.     

• Combined with the disproportionate growth of the “prosperity” of social classes, which use the governing power as its own “private capital”, the result will be tremendous differences between privileged circles living standard and this of millions of poor Bulgarians.

• Such formula for distributing the national potential does not suppose win-win situation leading to a common prosperity. The public assets are perceived as the property of the privileged strata (class) called the “political strata” and their management is subordinated mainly to the production of added value for the members of this stratum.    

Project purpose: The purpose of this project is to initialize effective changes, which will orient the system from public governance in favor of political strata’s private interests towards public governance and self-governance satisfying real public interests and producing a competitive public product. In result, it should build ground for a quality of life for middle class Bulgarians, which corresponds to the European criteria.    
Project beneficiaries:

• The direct beneficiaries of this project are the Bulgarian citizens.
• The project results will serve indirectly the new Bulgarian partners in EU, as well.
• Optimizing country’s governance will undoubtedly make this partnership more effective.
• It will decrease the danger of unreasonable assimilation of the benefits resulting form Bulgarian membership in EU.
• Improvement of political and public management culture will increase the confidence in EU enlargement policy.
• A very important indirect result for the EU taxpayers will be presented by more effective management of the EU funds and lowering the rate of Bulgarian citizens seeking immigration by economical reasons

How does the project contribute to the problem’s solution?
Key reasons for the current situation: The analysis conducted by the Foundation, which is based on personal interviews with administrators, politicians, experts, journalists, citizens and in co-operation with organizations, points out some essential reasons, which have led to the problems mentioned above:

• Moral Value System. Personal interest is the driving value No1 for average Bulgarians. In general Bulgarian people are not motivated by goals, which would produce public effect. For example, volunteerism in Bulgaria is not considered as valuable. Personal interest is the main motivation for Bulgarian politicians and state men in general, as well. These two very important aspects  do not allow Bulgarians feeling and acting as a team.   

• Lack of extensive expert researches, which should contribute to strategic, informative and responsible decisions in the area of public governance. The algorithm “problem identification – analysis – decision making – action” is not observed on a national level, neither on a local one.  
• Lack of traditions and experience in governing process, which is oriented towards satisfying the community interest. The existing experience is in the opposite direction for more then 60 years.
• The selection of public administrators is not based on criteria about professionalism, but on party affiliation. There is a visible presence of fear among the administrative staff at any level. There is not area in the  decision – making process, which the specialist feels independent and not controlled. In Bulgarian public administration the creativity is not presented. It does not allow key specialists with long work experience and profound knowledge to be cultivated. Of course, all this leads to low quality public management and poor public service.
• Low competitiveness of the media, which should act as a reliable source for informative decisions. Very limited scope of professional interests, which does not stimulate public debates on profound public issues. Most of Bulgarian media do not act as sources for public education on issues of high public priority and reflect just the tip of the iceberg.    
• Low society expectations. Unofficial investigation by our foundation indicates that only 3 of 100 Bulgarians believe in the constitutional text according to which the power in Bulgaria evolves from the people. It lack of believe is a profound reason for lack of demand for better public service.

Taking into account the data collected by the Foundation, we can suggest the conclusion that the negative reasons could be reduced to:

• Lack of knowledge how good governance looks like (poor experience) -  30% 
• Community passivity (very low society expectations) based partly on constant historically proved dependence on World Superpowers– 20%
• Lack of honest and reliable political and community leaders to develop a positive model to follow.  The actual situation is quite the contrary. The existing model is a negative and proves that the personal interest is a major motivation for entering politics – 50%

 
Expected key results: The project’s formula is: Improvement of the leadership, society values and capacity will improve Bulgarian  social system significantly.
Working model of the Academy:
The academy will have two branches and an electronic weekly bulletin:  
Varna branch - it will serve as a “Think Tank” (laboratory for intelligent solutions). The program will be designed for local administration employees, future City Council members, media people and political and civil activists.   
Sofia Branch (in cooperation with other organization, which will be additionally specified)
This branch will serve as a laboratory for future leaders. The program is designed for students who are interested in a career in the field of politics or supreme administration.
E-Bulletin of the Academy for Governing
The E-Bulletin will be a weekly publication, issued together with the European Commission Representation in Bulgaria and the Permanent Delegation of Citizens of Bulgaria in Brussels. The E-Bulletin will be sent to every Member of Bulgarian Parliament, the Council of Ministers, ministries, embassies in Bulgaria, Bulgarian embassies all over the world, Bulgarian members of the European Parliament, Municipal Councils and Municipal Administrations, and non-governmental organizations.   
The E-Bulletin goals are:

• A creation  of effective and direct communication between Bulgarian institutions, EU institutions and Bulgarian citizens
• It will serve as a reliable source of information for accurate decision making by Bulgarian law-makers and important Bulgarian institutions during discussions on crucial political themes of the EU countries    
•  It will discuss Bulgarian actual problems and will search for solutions. Will offer EU experts’ opinions regarding these problems and also official EU Institutions’ positions
• It will provide a possibility to Bulgarian law-makers and institutions to inform themselves about the way other EU countries resolve actual problems such as the decentralization of the local government, citizen participation in the government process, ecology, economic competitiveness, education, public health services, combating corruption, etc.  
• It will give avenue for Bulgarian citizens to express their opinion on matters of nigh importance and will deliver these opinions directly to the members of the Parliament and other sectors of public governance
• It will contain data base with the work cases, which have been brain stormed in the Academy Varna’s branch. In that way the intellectual product created by the Academy will be multiplied and perhaps the intelligent approach while searching for problem solutions in the field of public management will be popularized.