Efficient and Effective Kosovo Public Services 5th Training Cycle: “Protocol and Public Speaking Training”
PROJECT BACKGROUND
In the mid-1998, after wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), another war broke out in the Serbian southern province of Kosovo. In June 1999, following seventy-eight days of NATO-led bombing, Serbian troops and police left Kosovo. Although Kosovo officially remained part of Serbia, the United Nations (UN) Security Council assigned the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) a mandate to administer the province. In late 2001, Kosovo held its first free, democratic, Kosovo-wide elections. Soon after, it acquired its first-ever democratic institutions that include an elected Kosovo Assembly, Presidency, Office of Prime Minister and various Ministries. The ethnic Albanians, which represent 90 % of Kosovo population, were back in 2001 hardly equipped to take on such a demanding task. Kosovo has been stripped of its autonomy in 1989 after enjoying the status of an Autonomous Province since the II. World War. From 1989 to 1998, Slobodan Milosević carried out a myriad of purges of Kosovo Albanian officials.
In the following years Kosovo Administration grew and its servants gained expertise, but after declaring independency in February 2008 and establishment of all needed institutions for fully operating state, it employed numerous people, with diverse knowledge and experiences.
This type of circumstances additionally contributed to the insufficient capacity of the Kosovo Public Administration as their current Kosovo Albanian employees that once worked in the public service, have a gap in their employment from 1989 – 2001. Consequently, their ways of providing public service is similar to those used in the 80s.
However, the Kosovo public administration has a great need for educating its employees, building on them modern, democratic and effective state. The Centre for European Perspective started with a pilot project titled “Efficient and Effective Kosovo Public Services” in 2006 and after its successful implementation and the satisfaction of the beneficiaries, decided to provide the Kosovo with wide and indispensable knowledge on various aspects of the public administration.
5th TRAINING CYCLE BACKGROUND
First impressions matters. Especially when meeting people that might not come across our path very soon again, maneuvering space for correcting mistakes is small. This becomes even more visible at official meetings and ceremonial events, where every detail comes under the eyes of the media and consequently the eyes of every citizen.
The usual framework giving us the information whether our behavior was appropriate or correct is protocol. It is encompassing a whole codex of regulations that was consensually agreed upon, many years ago. Protocol encompasses the rules of behavior in various situations and at the numerous occasions, from the basic rules of good manners in every day life to the complex international regulations, touching the relations between the countries, or even better, among their representatives. The latter is also known as diplomatic protocol, being decisively important in today’s everyday contacts of public servants to the colleagues abroad and often travels around the world. It is nowadays especially vital for Kosovo while their first goal of the foreign policy is the appeal for the recognition as the sovereign independent state.
How we perform the demands of the protocol is the other crucial point. It is widely accepted that impression that is left after the first appearance, depends mostly on the outlook of the performer (55%), his voice and speaking (38%) and only 7% on the content of the message. Therefore the public performance is as important as message that we want to pass on, for that reason the attention must be paid to the details as well – how to dress, walk, greet, talk, use the mimics and approach our colleagues.
Kosovo is the youngest European country and therefore it has the youngest public administration as well. It is said that the public performance of civil servants home and especially abroad is particularly important for small countries which can through the framework of the diplomatic protocol present their country, culture and in a way promote itself. It the light of the current political situation of the Kosovo, the latter would be of the prime importance.
For successful work and even more for the presentation of their country and its policies, awareness about the importance of public speaking is decisive. Knowing the aspects of the communication, body language and how to fight stage fear gives the public servants needed confidence to speak and act in public, home and abroad. This gives a great starting point for all further communication within the international organizations as well in Kosovo, especially in the light of current political situation.
High-level civil servants abroad are often seen as the representatives of their states and often somebody’s opinion about civil servant of certain nationality is generalized on the perception of his homeland. Diplomats and other representatives of their country at home and abroad should have specific personal attributes and skills, such as higher level of the education, knowledge of foreign languages, foreign cultures, well developed communication skills, indispensable knowledge about the protocol, ability of great observation, quick adaptation capacity, to list only some of the most important ones.
