Programmes

The project aims to provide systemic support to improve the quality and professionalism of journalism in the Western Balkans and Türkiye. It is based on a successful model established by BIRN and its partners over the past four years, which enables journalists to produce relevant, high-quality content independently, broadening citizens’ perspectives on issues of public importance and increasing trust in the media. The project includes capacity building for mid-career and young journalists, ensuring quality in journalism study programs, supporting the production of quality news, TV and cross-border investigation stories, providing investigative resource desk support, and promoting these stories through awards. Additionally, the project aims to ensure that the quality of journalism study programs is maintained for future generations.

The aim of this project is to enhance the knowledge and skills of media and civil society to monitor digital rights violations and disinformation, assert the right to information and respond to abuses in the digital sphere. The project will work on improving the capacities of journalists and organizations by providing them with mentorship, editorial guidance, legal and grant support to increase policy and advocacy efforts, and equip target groups with the skills to track and respond to digital rights violations.

The project aim is to contribute to making justice institutions in Kosovo more transparent and accountable, thereby increasing public demand for the enhancement of their performance.

This project aims to increase transparency and accountability from local governance institutions by producing and publishing stories on public spending abuses, institutional wrongdoings and corrupt affairs. It aims to help build the capacity of journalists and journalism students to monitor and report about corruption, public procurement and public expenditure.

This project aims to contribute to an increase in transparency and accountability in local government institutions by monitoring procurement activities at local and central levels and publishing a report on public spending abuses, institutional wrongdoings and corrupt affairs.

This project aims to contribute to combating the spread of fake news and disinformation in Kosovo by raising awareness and promoting fact-checking reporting among the people of Kosovo and supporting fact-checking journalism. The project aims to increase public awareness on fake news and disinformation, especially among marginalized groups such as women, the young and members of non-majority communities.

The project aims to strengthen the legal basis for proper environmental protection for national parks and increase the efficiency of this mechanism through good management. BIRN Kosova, as leader of the civil society coalition, will implement various activities including analysis and research, aiming to identify and expose corruption related to protected areas/national parks, focused on the Drini and Mirusha rivers, including the Ibar.

This project aims to contribute to a better understanding of the roles that three key international players – the EU, Russia and China – have on the seven project countries’ economies. In the course of this, journalists from the seven countries – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Georgia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan – will map Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), coming from these three players and identify the main challenges and consequences for their countries. They will also produce investigative country-based and cross-border reports while their skills will be upgraded with a series of capacity-building activities.

The aim of this project is to increase the accountability to citizens of Montenegro’s national and local governments, as well as public institutions, and empower the justice system and the rule of law.

The project aims to strengthen transitional justice mechanisms in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Kosovo through enhanced usage of courts’ archives and professional reporting on war crimes. Specifically, the project is intended to reinforce the role of local artists, journalists, researchers, and historians in becoming drivers of change in reconciliation processes in the Balkan region; also, to improve intercultural dialogue and guarantees of non-recurrence through enhanced usage of court archives for the creation of multimedia fact-based content, combating the disinformation and denial that are encouraged by mainstream nationalistic narratives.

This project aims to contribute to a better understanding of the roles that three key international players – the EU, Russia and China – have on the seven project countries’ economies. In the course of this, journalists from the seven countries – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Georgia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan – will map Foreign Direct Investment, FDI, coming from these three players and identify the main challenges and consequences for their countries. They will also produce investigative country-based and cross-border reports while their skills will be upgraded with a series of capacity-building activities.

The project aims to contribute to the overall exposure and mainstreaming of issues of Internet freedom and digital rights through partnering with local organizations from the Balkans and Moldova in monitoring and analyzing trends pertaining to freedom of expression, privacy and freedoms online. It involves organizing regional events/workshops for key stakeholders and supporting region-wide capacity to address and respond to technical and policy-level attacks on Internet freedom.

This project aims to contribute to improving the public debate on climate change and environmental protection in the Balkans through strengthening journalists and media to produce high-quality, independent and systematic climate reporting. Journalists and media will work together so that, instead of isolated reports on environmental problems, systematic and cross-border reporting is done that can convey the national and global character of this phenomenon to the public in an understandable way.

The project “European Focus” promotes a diverse, independent and pluralistic media environment and fosters intercultural dialogue. The “European Focus” newsletter will strengthen European reporting (its quality and quantity) and journalistic partnerships by establishing regular and long-term cross-border collaborative practices between European newsrooms, media and journalists.

The aim of this project is to strengthen the editorial independence of the media, enabling them to provide audiences with a more diverse range of content, so encouraging open, informed and active discussion amongst audiences in the six Balkans countries.