The Governor of the National Bank of Moldova, Anca Dragu, chaired the Annual Meeting of the Governing Board of the Centre of Excellence in Finance (CEF) in Ljubljana, Slovenia, held today, 13 June 2024, in Chisinau.

During the meeting, Board members reviewed and approved the CEF's financial report for 2023 and discussed plans and governance frameworks for 2025-2026.

From her position as Chair of the CEF Governing Board, Anca Dragu highlighted the valuable experience that the organisation offers: "Chairing the CEF Governing Board allows you to interact with extremely dedicated people who believe in the power of sharing knowledge and expertise. Good luck to the next Chair and to all members of the CEF community. May the coming year be rich in ideas, projects, and achievements", said Anca Dragu.

CEF Director Jana Repanšek referred to the Council's ongoing initiatives and projects, highlighting the notable growth and innovation in CEF's work, actively involving public institutions in addressing the challenges of green finance and digitisation, tailoring solutions to country-specific needs.

In particular, Jana Repanšek praised the tangible results of the NBM LearnOrgLab project, which promotes the culture of effective knowledge management and innovation among NBM employees.

The CEF Director also thanked the Governing Board members for their guidance and support in transforming the CEF programme of learning and knowledge exchange into valuable experiences for civil servants in South-Eastern Europe and beyond. "Working together, we have achieved remarkable results, and I am confident that our efforts will continue to generate positive changes for employees, teams and institutions alike," said Jana Repanšek.

In addition to the Governing Board meeting, the Annual Meeting also included the CEF 2024 Forum dedicated to strengthening the governance of financial competences. Participants discussed the importance of strengthening public institutions, creating a culture where learning and sharing of experience is encouraged, improving leadership skills and using knowledge management to retain talented people within organizations.

At the end of the meeting, the NBM Governor handed over the rotating chairmanship of the CEF Governing Council to the Montenegrin Minister of Finance, Novica Vuković, marking a transition of responsibilities.

The CEF is an international organization whose mission is to support professional capacity building through training of financial sector officials in South-Eastern Europe: https://www.cef-see.org/ . The Republic of Moldova joined the organization in 2015.