The role of economic planning in public sector: Principles, evidence and lessons for Serbia in the context of EU integration

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the current situation in the area of policy planning in Serbia based on some basic principles in the field of national level economic planning and evidence-based policy making. Current abundance of individual strategies on national level adopted by the Government of Serbia is definitely a reflection of a strong need for development planning in order to deal with all reform challenges ahead which should be addressed with thoughtful policy agenda. There is a room for improvement in the following areas: (a) introduction of a systemic approach linking sector level strategies to the roof long-term development plan, (b) strengthening of the analytical support to planning, (c) linking phases of policy making to include monitoring and evaluation phase, (d) linking the annual cycle of planning and budgeting into a single process, with a harmonized methodology, which also covers planning of non-legislative activities such as public investment, and (e) legitimizing policy concept or concept document as a policy document that can be presented to the Government. The paper is structured as follows: first we try to depict main principles of government planning, we secondly present the role of evidence-based policy making, following by the overview of the current situation in terms of policy making in Serbia. Finally, in the concluding section, we propose the main axes of possible further improvement in the present setting and its alignment with best practices.