RSA International Hour

Serbian municipalities face serious governance, financing and infrastructure challenges that impact the quality of utility services and how they are delivered to the citizens. The problems are many: they range from inadequate municipal supervision over service delivery and financial management of local utility service providers – over poor collection of utility fees and charges, the accumulation of arrears, a lack of creditworthiness of service providers – to heavy dependence on central government’s financial arrangements and guarantees for investment. One of the major causes of financial non-sustainability of utility service providers is underpricing of utility services, as municipalities do not comply with the cost recovery principle. Besides the problems with financing recurrent expenditures, municipalities and the service providers also face challenges in accessing long-term loans for capital investment. The issues of ownership and management of infrastructure often aggravate this problem further. Serbian Local Government Finance Reform Program provides technical assistance to municipalities to introduce principles of good governance, better manage fiscal risks, enhance internal control of utility service providers and, thus, improve local finance and the quality of services provided to citizens. Professor Katarina Djulic is one of the Program’s key financial experts working on capacity building of local governments and municipal enterprises to improve local risk and financial management. Prof. Djulic will present the evidence and experience from Serbia, as well as the comparative overview of similar challenges and best practices from other Western Balkan countries.

Organised in partnership with Sanja Kmezić, RSA Ambassador for Serbia

Katarina Djulic, faculty of Economics, Finance and Administration, Serbia

Katarina Djulic is the professor of corporate finance, corporate governance and risk management at the Faculty of Economics, Finance and Administration in Belgrade, Serbia. She currently works as an international consultant for the World Bank conducting policy research and analysis on subnational governance in the Western Balkans. She is also an international consultant for the International Finance Corporation (IFC) conducting corporate governance assessments of state-owned enterprises and sovereign wealth funds on a global scale. Ms Djulic is also engaged in Local Government Finance Reform Program, as a financial expert working on capacity building of local governments for the oversight of fiscal risks of municipal enterprises. Before her current engagements, Ms. Djulic was a senior consultant in KPMG Belgrade for governance, risk and forensic projects; project manager for IFC for corporate governance projects in Serbia and Montenegro; adviser to the minister and assistant minister of finance in charge of the Department for Financial System; project manager at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s Office of General Council in London. Ms. Djulic was also a member of Board of Directors in DDOR, Novi Sad and Deposit Insurance Agency of the Republic of Serbia; a member of Supervisory Board in Jubanka, Beograd; and Chairwoman of Supervisory Board in Central Securities Depositary and Clearing House of the Republic of Serbia. Ms. Djulic holds a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Belgrade, a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from Northwestern University, a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University, JFK School of Government, and a PhD degree from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Belgrade.

Chair: Sanja Kmezić, University of Graz, Austria

Sanja Kmezić is a lecturer at the University of Graz, where she teaches Economic Analysis of Law, Socio-economic Development in South East Europe, and Transition Policy and Regional Development in South East Europe. Sanja has worked as an international consultant for the World Bank, European Commission, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and USAID on programs aimed at local government and public sector reform. She is a also coordinator of the Decentralisation Working Group within the LSE-LSEE Research Network on Social Cohesion in South East Europe. Sanja holds a doctorate from the Faculty of Law of the University of Graz, a Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree from the University of Pittsburgh and an LL.B. from the University of Belgrade. Her research areas cover public finance, tax law and fiscal policy analysis, and her special research focus is on fiscal decentralization, local government finance, and subnational governance and development.

Timings for this event are as follows:

• 13.00 BST
• 14.00 CEST