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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
MISSION SPOTLIGHT: KOSOVO
In this section:
Kosovo Gets Help After War’s Trauma
Women Rebuild War-Shattered Lives Through Literacy
Classes
Entrepreneurs Invigorate Kosovo Businesses
Ethnic Albanian, Serb, and Roma Kosovars Build Road Together
NGOs Help Kosovar Cities to Clean Up War
Rubble
Training Judges Builds Public Trust
Kosovo Gets Help After War’s Trauma
PRISTINA, Kosovo—The summer finds this U.N.-run
territory in the former Yugoslavia in expectation of a U.N.
report that could launch talks on Kosovo’s future status
as either part of Serbia, as an independent country, or other
options.
Serbia insists Kosovo—which holds ancient historic
monasteries—not become independent. But the overwhelmingly
ethnic Albanian population, traumatized by repression under
Serbian domination, wants independence.
The United Nations—with aid from organizations such
as USAID—has administered the region since 1999, when
a NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
ended Belgrade’s campaign to crush separatists and expel
hundreds of thousands of Albanian Kosovars.
Since then, Kosovo has been a U.N. protectorate, with its
ministries run by a mix of local officials and international
experts, among them U.S. government and private personnel.
U.S. assistance goes to develop the economy, promote democracy
and civil society, strengthen individual and institutional
capacities, and improve healthcare. USAID staffers serving
as advisors to ministries such as finance or justice have
powerful roles in government.
“Because we have the respect of the leaders, we can
get a lot done,” said Ken Yamashita, USAID/Kosovo’s
mission director. “We are literally helping create what
Kosovo is today, in terms of fiscal issues, banking, justice.”
Officials from U.N.-member countries have taken on particular
ministries with which to work. USAID has focused on the ministries
of finance and justice. The finance ministry was transferred
in early 2005 to Kosovars who received extensive training
and material support. The justice ministry is in the process
of being transferred as well.
“Our budget is $30 million—that’s a lot for
a country of 2 million people,” Yamashita said. “It
allows us to accomplish a lot.”
The largest Kosovar cities are Pristina, the capital, with
500,000 inhabitants, and Prizren, in the southwest, with 120,000
residents. The landlocked territory borders Serbia and Montenegro,
Albania, and Macedonia. Some 90 percent of Kosovars are ethnic
Albanians, with Serbs the main minority.
Because Kosovo is not a country, it does not have an official
flag—residents often use that of Albania—or an official
language. English is used for official business, and all traffic
signs are in both Albanian and Serbian.
During the 1998–99 war, 58 percent of the homes were
severely damaged or destroyed, and several thousand people
died in the conflict. After the war, somewhere between 100,000
and 250,000 Serbian and Roma Kosovars fled the region. Many
mosques and kullas (traditional Albanian homes) were destroyed
during the war, and Serbian Orthodox churches were burnt following
the war.
Since the war, serious unrest broke out only once, in March
2004, after the shooting of an 18-year-old Serbian Kosovar
and the drowning of three Albanian boys the following day.
The incidents led to two days of unrest, leaving 19 people
dead and more than 900 injured, including 61 peacekeepers
and 55 police officers. Many Serbian Kosovar homes and 16
churches were destroyed. Some 3,600 people were left homeless.
“Today Kosovo is peaceful, but it is politically fractured,
the institutions are weak, and local governments are even
weaker, especially on the multiethnic issue,” said the
head of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Kosovo, Phil Goldberg.
As Kosovars gear up to run their own affairs, U.S. assistance
will continue to stress reconciliation and ethnic tolerance
on both sides, Goldberg said. “It has to be a two-way
street.”
“Programs now must support the new justice ministry
and improving the economy,” he said. “Stronger businesses
and more jobs benefit all ethnicities, all Kosovars, and Kosovo’s
future.”
FrontLines Acting Deputy Managing Editor Kristina Stefanova
visited Kosovo recently and edited and wrote this series of
articles.
Women Rebuild War-Shattered Lives Through Literacy Classes
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Women in Krushe e Vogel/Mala Krusa, sister village
to Krushe e Madhe/Velika Krusa, earn money selling milk
from their cows at a local milk-collecting center, founded
with support from USAID. About 70 percent of the women
in the area were made widows by the war.
Patricia Orlowitz, USAID/Kosovo |
KRUSHE E MADHE/VELIKA KRUSA, Kosovo—Vaxhide
Dina, 30, lost her father and three brothers to the war here
six years ago. The family’s home of 50 years was destroyed.
Dina now cares for her elderly mother, two of her widowed
sisters-in-law, and six nieces and nephews. She spends her
days working in the field. Until the past few months, she
was illiterate.
Dina is among two dozen women learning to read and write
through a women’s literacy course funded by U.S. assistance.
“In the future, I hope to have children of my own, and
I want to be able to help them with their schoolwork,”
she said.
Half the women in Krushe e Madhe/Velika Krusa are illiterate.
Just over 200—or 70 percent—were made widows by
the war. Some 500 children here have one or no parents.
Traditionally low literacy among girls and women was made
worse during Slobodan Milosevic’s dictatorship. Albanian
language courses were abolished in Kosovo in the 1980s, when
Yugoslavia tightened its grip on the previously autonomous
region. Teachers were dismissed and students pushed out of
schools. Private lessons were held informally, but these efforts
were repressed and ended completely with the war.
Also, local families traditionally revolve around their
sons, said Ola Syla, regional coordinator for an NGO that
teaches women to read and write. “In a family with four
children, there may be resources to educate only one. And
the priority is the son, because he can support the parents,
while girls go to the family in which they marry.”
This was the case of Hydajete Selmani, whose father died
before she was old enough to attend school. By tradition,
the widowed mother was returned to her family and the children
were kept with their father’s parents. Selmani had to
work in the field and help raise her younger brother. At 16,
she was married to a man of the family’s choice, and
she never learned to read or write until a few months ago.
She is now 43.
“It’s very hard not to be able to write your own
name. Everyone jokes around,” said Selmani. “If
I had to go to the clinic, I had to take someone with me to
help me.”
Now she can read enough to catch the first line of subtitles
in foreign soap operas.
Literacy classes are held Saturdays and Sundays at noon.
Each of the 12 lessons introduces letters by focusing on a
subject relevant to rural women—for instance, one lesson
discusses the role of women in the home; another covers childcare.
The women all smile and respond happily when asked if they
enjoy their class. They say they don’t mind homework.
But come harvest time, they ask for classes to be held at
a different time or—better yet—to be suspended for
a month. “There are so few men here, and the women have
the burden of raising the children and working the land,”
said Syla.
This year, USAID is spending $150,000 on literacy programs
for 700 women in 10 municipalities.
The Agency also funds a project by a local NGO that conducted
a survey looking into why girls drop out before completing
primary school. The study found that most girls either lived
too far from secondary schools—and their parents would
not let them travel alone—or they were needed to work
in the fields.
The NGO is now trying to work with the municipal government
to start additional women’s literacy classes.
Entrepreneurs Invigorate Kosovo Businesses
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Employee pulls out a stack of newly made blocks at
Silcapor. USAID helped the factory get going after years
of being shut down.
Patricia Orlowitz, USAID/Kosovo |
Kacanik, Kosovo—Two years ago, concrete block
maker Silcapor was just another of a few hundred defunct socially
owned enterprises (SOEs) dating back to former socialist Yugoslavia.
The factory—where many local residents once worked—was
home to pigeons and spiderwebs.
But after some pushing from USAID to get the United Nations—which
administers the economic sector in Kosovo—to sell Silcapor,
the concrete block maker is once again the largest employer
in Kacanik.
Through another project, Kosovo Cluster and Business Support
(KCBS), the Agency helped two brothers buy the business and
get it going. Today, Silcapor is as busy as a beehive, employing
220 workers who earn 60 percent more than they did before
the factory shut down.
The factory produces 42,000 cubic meters of blocks per year,
but its capacity can grow to 120,000 cubic meters, said Martin
Wood, chief of party for KCBS. USAID will invest $19 million
in KCBS over four years to work with several industries, or
clusters, in the areas of construction materials, fruits and
vegetables, and dairy and poultry.
“There is a huge potential market in Kosovo because
75 percent of the blocks are imported. If this place gets
going, we could reduce imports, which is the goal of KCBS,”
said Wood.
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Trilingual: A traffic sign in Kosovo indicates directions
to three cities in three languages. Albanian and Serbian
are the two main languages spoken, but Kosovo has a
sizable Turkish minority in certain areas, as reflected
in the use of Turkish in the sign above.
Patricia Orlowitz, USAID/Kosovo |
The project linked the Berisha brothers to a bank that gave
them a loan to buy Silcapor. They then received help to get
additional capital to reopen the factory, fix machinery, and
get the place running.
Now sales are expanding. The brothers recently met with
USAID and the Kosovo Ministry of Education about setting up
a contract for Silcapor to provide all the blocks for school
building and renovation. Silcapor has also signed a year-long
contract for 2 million euros with a Greek buyer. It is also
negotiating with clients in Bulgaria and Macedonia. Exports
are currently 30 percent of the business.
“We used to work with [Silcapor] before, selling cement,
so we knew how the business works and what it’s all about,”
said new co-owner Saqip Berisha. “And we feel like this
is the only place in the municipality that can help people.”
Kosovo is home to about 500 socially owned and publicly
owned enterprises, including a massive flour mill, a publishing
company, and numerous wineries. An SOE is managed in part
by the workers, who make decisions about the SOE’s future
and share part of its profits, in addition to their salaries.
Publicly owned enterprises (POEs) include Kosovo’s railroad,
numerous utilities, and a telecommunications company.
After the United Nations began governing Kosovo in 1999,
it set up a department to handle the SOEs, and, in 2002, established
the Kosovo Trust Agency (KTA) to administer and ultimately
sell SOEs.
USAID has been helping make these sales happen, while at
the same time working with entrepreneurs on business development
and access to credit through KCBS.
“Most [SOEs] are defunct, bankrupt, and not operating.
Few were maintained in the last 10 years, and for the last
five years since the war they have deteriorated even more,”
said Sharon Hester of USAID/Kosovo, who works on the KTA.
“Basically, we are taking the assets of SOEs and monetizing
them.”
The sale of Silcapor took nearly two years. When the United
Nations began administering the region, it decided that it
was best to privatize SOEs and put earnings from those sales
in a trust under the KTA, where the money is held to satisfy
any future claims.
Before selling a SOE, the KTA—under USAID’s leadership—prepares
companies and their documents for investors to perform due
diligence. The KTA contacts known claimants and invites potential
owners and creditors to file claims with the agency. Twenty
percent of the sale proceeds from an SOE go to the former
employees; the rest goes in a special account, which can be
tapped into as owners and creditors are identified.
“What we have through KCBS and working with the KTA
is two projects that really work hand-in-hand,” Hester
said. “With Silcapor, for instance, we helped make the
sale happen, and KCBS provided support to the new owners so
that they could make the best of their business.”
Ethnic Albanian, Serb, and Roma Kosovars Build Road Together
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This man stands on a road that he and his Albanian
Serbian, and Roma Kosovar neighbors built.
Patricia Orlowitz, USAID/Kosovo |
RUBOFC/RUBOVC, Kosovo—An old man stands in the
middle of a road that he and his neighbors—ethnic Albanian,
Serb, and Roma Kosovars—built together.
In nearby municipalities, mixed communities have paved other
roads, constructed water and sewage systems, and renovated
schools.
Providing such services will bring people who left during
the war back to their homes, said Xhelil Munati, a municipal
official near the village of Rubovc.
“They say there are no conditions for life here. But
they return if there is water, sewage systems, and things
that they need,” Munati said.
USAID’s Municipal Infrastructure and Support Initiative
(MISI) helps municipalities implement about eight projects
per year that they could not have afforded without the Agency’s
support. Under the initiative, the projects must benefit and
engage mixed communities. So whether a road is paved or a
school gets a facelift, a MISI project brings together Roma,
Serbian, Bosniac, and Albanian Kosovars.
“It seems that people finally understand that without
cooperation they cannot implement what they want,” Munati
said.
“This project has been very important for us because
we face big obstacles at the municipality. We don’t have
sufficient funds to follow through on major requests made
by the communities. We need to assist them, but we can’t,”
he said. “Through MISI, we’ve been able to provide
drinking water and sewage [system], and bring roads to villages
that didn’t have any roads before.”
NGOs Help Kosovar Cities to Clean Up War Rubble
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Bashkim Rrahmani (right), director of the Foundation
for Democratic Initiatives, Kosovo’s only grantmaking
foundation, talks earlier this year to Luiz Jimenez,
a staffer for an Illinois congressman. The meeting was
arranged by the Balkans Trust for Democracy, a grantmaking
initiative supported by USAID, the German Marshall Fund,
and others.
USAID/Kosovo |
DECAN/DECANI, Kosovo—The war six years ago left
this city in the western part of Kosovo littered with burned
vehicles and debris from homes, schools, and sports centers.
For years the rubble lay around. But now—in what is
Kosovo’s first scrap metal recycling project regulated
and administered by a local government—the garbage is
being collected. And property owners who do not set aside
metal items from their regular trash for recycling can be
fined.
“Over 90 percent of the city was destroyed. Businesses
were ruined…and it got us thinking, in Indira Gandhi’s
words, ‘Poorness is the beginning of pollution,’”
said Adem Lushaj of the NGO Association of Independent Intellectuals,
which drafted environmental regulations for scrap metal that
were passed by the local government in April 2004.
Today, the NGO monitors enforcement of the recycling process
through a grant from Foundation for Democratic Initiatives
(FDI), Kosovo’s only grantmaking foundation. FDI was
created with U.S. support, and is based in Gjakova/Dakovica,
a city about 50 miles from Pristina.
FDI Director Bashkim Rrahmani says local governments act
on suggestions made by NGOs because the groups—only in
existence since 1999, after the war—have become strong
and respected.
When new civil society groups flooded Kosovo six years ago,
few had skills in management or advocacy or knew how to sustain
themselves. To help them develop, USAID launched the Kosovo
NGO Advocacy Project (KNAP), which in three years trained
hundreds of NGOs.
More than 3,000 NGOs are registered in Kosovo now, but Rrahmani
estimates that only about 500 are active and will last. “The
biggest problem is sustainability,” he said.
KNAP set up an NGO training and resource center in Pristina
that will continue training after the project ends.
FDI has awarded 182 grants totaling $1.5 million to local
NGOs for projects related to human rights, environmental protection,
ethnic reconciliation, anticorruption advocacy, and other
subjects.
“Finally, we have NGOs with a clear vision and clear
structures [that] are very responsible and…capable of
facing the challenges that Kosovo faces,” Rrahmani said.
Lushaj’s group is just one example of an NGO that has
drafted regulations or made suggestions to local governments
in areas that authorities had overlooked.
“We see a strong willingness for NGOs to collaborate
with municipalities or other NGOs,” Rrahmani said.
Training Judges Builds Public Trust
MITROVICA/MITROVICE, Kosovo—The municipal court
lies in the north portion of this city, across a bridge guarded
by U.N. peacekeepers. Ethnic Albanians do not cross the bridge
from the south, and ethnic Serbs do not cross from the north.
A U.N. convoy transports judges, court staff, and citizens
dealing with the law to the court in the morning and back
in the afternoon.
“We work limited hours; it’s quite difficult,”
said Kaplan Baruti, a judge who is one of the few ethnic Albanians
to live on the north side of town, where everything is written
in Serbia’s Cyrillic alphabet.
The physical aspect of administering justice in a split
town is just one challenge faced by Kosovo’s justice
system, which, since 1999, has been administered by the United
Nations but is slowly coming more into the hands of Kosovars.
As that transition takes place, USAID is playing a major
role in strengthening the judiciary. The Agency helped create
and support a judges’ association that Baruti headed
until recently. The group of 340 judges advises the legislative
body, the Kosovo Assembly. The association also trains judges
to increase their professionalism and win public trust and
respect. It also runs an internship program for law students
so they can get the experience required to qualify for the
bar exam.
Working with judges is the key to building a strong justice
system in Kosovo, said Tom Monaghan, a Nebraska judge who
heads Kosovo’s Justice Department, a body that is being
turned over to Kosovo for self-rule in coming months.
“The judges are the first step. They have to be able
and competent,” Monaghan said. “You can have a great
police and good prosecutors, but it doesn’t mean as much
if the judges aren’t good.
“We need to have judges who are independent, and who
feel that they can render an independent judgment and not
have to answer to families or communities.”
This is accomplished through training, mentoring, and evaluation
projects, all of which USAID is supporting.
The Agency “is playing a fundamental role” in
creating a strong, independent judiciary in Kosovo, Monaghan
said. But there is still much work ahead. “We need the
laws to be effective to accomplish what we’re trying
to do here,” he said.
On July 19, the U.N. Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo
presented to Kosovo’s prime minister a proposal for the
transfer of police and justice administration to Kosovars.
The United Nations is set to review in late fall the progress
of executive power transfer, which, if it is going well, will
be completed by 2006.
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