By Vivienne Russell | 30 January 2013

Information on how public money is spent will be central to Romania’s ambition to introduce a system of policy monitoring and evaluation across government, the country’s government has been told.

This was one of the conclusions to emerge from a conference hosted in Bucharest earlier this week, which considered the challenges facing Romania as it attempts to integrate monitoring and evaluation into its public administration systems.

Experts from the UK, Canada, Slovakia and Hungary attended the conference to share practical experiences.

The debate concluded that, irrespective of the monitoring model Romania adopts, it would need clarity of purpose, so that reporting informs policy decisions and budget allocations.

A World Bank-backed project will monitor and evaluate implementation at two Romanian ministries: the Ministry of Labour, Family Social Protection and Elderly and the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration. The latter deals with public finance, tax administration and procurement.

Elisabetta Capannelli, World Bank country manager for Romania, said creating a culture of transparency in the public sector would not be an easy task. ‘It requires a cultural change,’ she said. 

But she commended Romania’s policymakers for their willingness to try and integrate transparency into ministries’ work.

‘Strengthening monitoring and evaluation of public policies in the ministries is a high priority for the Chancellery of the Prime Minister,’ State Secretary Radu Puchiu told the conference.