INTERVIEW H.E. ANNIKA BEN DAVID, AMBASSADOR DESIGNATE OF SWEDEN TO SERBIA
Great Room
FOR PROGRESS
As friends of Serbia, we want to cooperate with and support Serbia in meeting the conditions for its EU integration. I believe in particular that there is great room for progress on environmental issues, and we are working with the Serbian government on many projects aimed at improving the quality of life of the Serbian people.
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weden has provided strategic, predictable and long-term support to Serbia’s EU integration process for over two decades. This assistance has a number of strands that come together to support processes that are indeed building blocks to full membership: rule of law, public sector governance and accountability, economic performance and employment generation, the protection of natural resources and fundamental rights. With a total value of eight per cent of Serbia’s GDP (approximately €3.8 billion in 2019), public procurement is a very powerful tool to direct public spending towards better services where the citizens need them. “For citizens, it matters how the economy fares and how resources are distributed and spent,” says H.E. Annika Ben David, Ambassador Designate of Sweden to Serbia. “Citizens want value for their tax money, but this value does not literally translate into how little you spend. It also includes a measure of effectiveness and efficiency in the use of public resources. We exert additional effort to harness this purchasing power to buy more sustainable goods and services, and both the environment and society will benefit.” The project “Effective public procurement for economic growth”,
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Nordic Countries & Serbia 2021
which is being financed by Sweden and implemented by NALED (National Association for Local Economic Development), aims to help Serbia strengthen its knowledge base and streamline its public procurement procedures through further digitalisation and an inclusive public-private dialogue. As our interlocutor explains: “a dialogue between the public and private sectors was launched this summer, with July being dubbed “the month of public procurement”. However, we want this dialogue to continue every day until we reach an average of 3.5 bids per tender, instead of the current 2.5. The momentum for an open dialogue about moving environmental considerations higher up the list of criteria is here and we should use it”. Early October will see the staging of Nordic conferences dedicated to promoting the circular economy in Serbia. Which conference topics would you single out for the special attention of our readers? - I believe that would be the issue of waste management. We are aware of the problems that many Serbian cities are having with landfill sites and waste treatment. The Nordic countries had similar problems and have learned to view waste as a resource; a resource that can be used to create energy, fuel, heating
