In 1992, the government of Croatia began dismantling its old centralized administrative system in favor of cities and municipalities as self-governing entities.  Croatia, however, did not have a single academic program to provide training for people to manage these new administrative units.  That all changed in 2004 when, as a result of a $100,000 award from HED (then ALO), the Unger Croatia Center in the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University (CSU) partnered with the Faculty of Economics at the University of Rijeka (UR) to develop and implement the country’s first graduate-level curriculum in public administration, with a specialization in municipal management.

The new MPA program, which conforms to the European Union’s standards for higher education, is designed to increase local government’s capacity to manage Croatia’s resources.  Its mode of delivery is structured so as to accommodate the work schedules of those already working in the public sector.  CSU and UR developed all the courses jointly and team-taught many of them.  The first class of 9 MPA students (7 women, 2 men) graduated in the summer of 2006.

Using the MPA program as a model, the Zagreb School of Economics and Management recently established its own Center for Public Administration.  The partners expect that the program will be replicated at other institutions in Croatia as well.

“Sustainable improvement in the professionalism of local government officials and delivery of public service,” said partnership directors Tom Cozzens of CSU and Helena Blazic of UR, “can only be achieved by a long-term commitment to the education of those who are and who will be occupying leadership positions in local government.”

CSU faculty will continue to work closely with their Croatian colleagues until UR has developed the capacity to run the program on its own.  Cozzens believes that, eventually, UR’s new MPA program will be a “sustainable legacy of international and academic cooperation.”