Author: Aleksandra Vrbica

In the context of current challenges to transparency and governance integrity within Kosovo’s local municipalities, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) Kosovo will implement the project ‘Governing with Integrity: Promoting Accountable Leadership in Kosovo’ to promote a culture of accountability and integrity. This initiative targets key aspects of governance, from governmental operations to media coverage. Central to this initiative is the detailed examination of official reports, leveraging tools such as the Internal AuditMeter.

Summary:

Kosovo’s ongoing struggle against corruption remains a pressing concern. The European Commission’s 2020 report outlines that while the nation is still in its early stages of preparation to combat corruption, it isn’t devoid of a robust legal framework. The foundation, aligning with international standards, is firmly in place, leading to an intriguing paradox: why is the fight against corruption not making significant strides? At the heart of this dilemma is a gap in the integrity displayed by Kosovo’s municipalities and institutions. Despite the presence of appropriate legislative measures, there’s an evident discord in their practical implementation. Such a discrepancy raises questions about the commitment of these entities to the principles of transparency, accountability, and, most importantly, integrity. For any governance system to thrive, the unwavering integrity of its institutions is paramount. Without this cornerstone, the trust between the government and its citizens begins to erode.

BIRN Kosovo’s assessment has identified that the crux of this issue lies not in the absence of adequate legislation but surrounding the implementation of these laws. One evident gap in this implementation is the systemic oversight when it comes to the auditing processes. The National Audit Office (NAO) provided a stark revelation in this context. Their data from 2018 contrasts with that of 2017, indicating a decline in the number of recommendations made. Even more concerning is the realization that only about 40 percent of these recommendations have seen fruition. Delving deeper, local governance institutions received 586 recommendations in 2018. A mere 37 percent of these were acted upon, with a concerning 34 percent remaining untouched. However, the intricacy extends beyond mere numbers. There’s an evident absence of a structured process of monitoring, evaluating, or even reporting on the progress—or the lack thereof—of these recommendations by Kosovo’s institutions. This void underscores not only a lack of accountability but also illuminates the barriers in identifying and addressing bottlenecks to these implementations. The media landscape in Kosovo provides another facet to this multifaceted issue. While the media landscape is teeming with articles touching upon the challenges in the nation’s municipalities, its approach remains traditional. A significant proportion of the journalistic community in Kosovo adheres to “protocol journalism”, focusing more on event reporting rather than investigative reporting. To bring a fresh perspective it’s not just vital to pinpoint what is wrong, but also to highlight potential resolutions. Given the current state, there’s a compelling need to shift this narrative, equipping journalists with the tools and perspective to adopt this more holistic approach to reporting. Moreover, disciplinary commissions, institutions designed to uphold integrity, often find their actions swayed by external factors, such as political affiliations. This influence often leads to neglecting proper procedures and disregarding crucial recommendations.

In light of these challenges, BIRN Kosovo envisions a multi-pronged approach. By holistically monitoring and analyzing developments within municipal administrations, organizing town-hall debates, spotlighting violations, and broadcasting programs based on tangible findings, BIRN Kosovo seeks to magnify transparency and accountability. Over the course of 9 months, through these actions, the goal is to elicit a more robust response from municipalities and cultivate a more informed, engaged, and proactive civil society, media, and citizenry.

Donor: USAID KMI

Main objectives:

Overall Objective: Strengthen governance integrity in Kosovo’s local municipalities.

Specific Objectives:

1. Contribute to increased transparency and accountability in executing audit recommendations.
2. Contribute to the refinement of the operations and procedures of disciplinary commissions in targeted municipalities.
3. Guide journalists towards investigative and solution-driven journalism.

Main activities:

Activity 1: Conducting a detailed examination of NAO’s Annual Audit Reports from 2022 and 2021, each corresponding to one of the 5 targeted municipalities and BIRN will send letters to the selected municipalities, clearly stating the violations, the parties responsible and requesting information on what measures the municipalities have taken or intend to take as a consequence.

Activity 2: Compiling and publishing comprehensive analysis for each of the 5 municipalities.

Activity 3: Conducting analysis and continuous monitoring of disciplinary commissions and procedures in a select subset of three municipalities.

The overall goal of the project is to help prevent the spread of false news, misinformation, and disinformation on different platforms in Kosovo and to foster the development of a discerning, informed, and ethical media environment, organisations, and professionals, by contributing to setting up of a sustainable model of reliable press in Kosovo that enhances trust among communities and works towards advancing sustained peace and security, political equanimity, and coexistence in the region. Furthermore, the project aims to contribute to the creation of a critical mass of news and information consumers in Kosovo able to identify, prevent further spreading, and protect themselves from false news, misinformation, and disinformation.

Summary:

In multi-ethnic, post-conflict societies, misinformation has the potential to adversely impact conditions for sustained peace and coexistence among communities and create political strife. Moreover, in a digital and social media age, and a of the steep rise of online news portals in Kosovo, rumours and manipulated falsehoods can have heightened operational consequences for UNMIK and international partners by undoing or undermining careful and deliberate political work, and directly impacting the safety and security of communities that peacekeeping missions serve.

The proposed project comes at a time when Kosovo continues to witness an upward trend in the spread of mis- and disinformation. Media outlets lack the necessary capacities (resources and skillsets) to report on these issues and uphold professional fact-checking standards, whereas consumers are not well-equipped to identify spurious news stories and debunk them. Such false news items are frequently on topics related to members of non-majority communities, which in turn perpetuates discrimination, and reinvigorates fear and insecurity amongst readers. These news items are easily spread across most online media given current social media algorithms reward polarising and extreme content. This is similarly a problem in the Western Balkans.

BIRN Kosovo, in cooperation with Serbian-language Kosovo portal KoSSev, will identify, analyse and debunk false or misleading news; covering topics relating to, inter alia, security, politics, inter-ethnic relations, tension in northern Kosovo, mis- and disinformation, health, the economy and culture through the publication of fact-checking articles and television programmes, and will help cultivate a fact-checking culture amongst young and future journalists and students through workshops and lectures. All activities will be conducted in line with international human rights frameworks.

Donor:

UNMIK

Main Objectives:

Objective 1: Enhanced knowledge and awareness on fact-checking journalism among young generation.

Objective 2: Increased public awareness about mis- and disinformation relating to areas such as security, health, economy, and culture.

Objective 3: Youth across Kosovo communities enhanced media literacy and gained the necessary knowledge on fact-checking, ethical constitutes and professional reporting.

Main Activities:

1. Organise 2 training workshops on fact-checking journalism with 40 young journalists and students;
2. Publish 40 articles that debunk mis- or disinformation circulating across various platforms in Kosovo; provide fact-checked, real-time, accurate reporting during crisis situations;
3. Establish an anti-disinformation partnership with the local Serbian-language media KoSSev publishing articles debunking false news as a result of this partnership;
4. Produce and broadcast 4 TV programs featuring members of different communities living in Kosovo to discuss effects of mis- and disinformation on the real-time reporting during crisis situations; and
5. Translate into Serbian language the existing Albanian language content of the false news and hate speech platform (developed by D+) making it bilingual and available to Serbian-speaking youth in Kosovo, and run a fighting dis- and misinformation course for 200 high school and university students from different communities in Kosovo.

Target Groups:

• Members of all ethnic communities in Kosovo, particularly Albanians and Serbs
• Students and journalists of local media from different ethnic backgrounds
• Media outlets
• Citizens of Kosovo

Main implementer:

BIRN Kosovo

Project partner:

Kossev

This project aims to enhance Kosovo’s societal cohesion by fostering a deeper understanding of Kosovo’s conflict legacy through nationwide research, capacity-building activities, and the integration of transitional justice into the national education curriculum.  It aims to build the capacities of young students to research matters on transitional justice and to provide the general public with a deeper understanding of the conflict legacy.

Summary

The Kosovo War has deeply affected local communities and the people’s collective memory thus creating biased narratives that continue to divide rather than unify the communities living in Kosovo. Dealing with the conflict legacy in Kosovo aims to address the knowledge gap on the Kosovo War and enhance public understanding through a multifaceted approach involving research, education, and public discourse.  An example is the educational system which perpetuates the war narratives leaving ethnic divisions lingering more than two decades after the conflict.

This project in the first instance aims to deepen the understanding of the war by conducting comprehensive, objective research to challenge one-sided narratives. This objective will be achieved through detailed research and analysis of war discourse by Kosovo’s main institutions and some targeted municipalities to understand more about how they take into account the war and the aftermath of their public discourse, with an emphasis on what they chose to share to the public by analyzing their official websites and social media profiles. The interest of the project is to analyze their discourse and see if transitional justice principles apply to the main institutions and their heads in carrying out the war legacy. In addition to that, the research will emphasize researching the media, monuments, and research narratives of solidarity by individuals coming from different communities during the war. All the research findings will be disseminated through a conference, TV debate, and digital channels.

Dealing with the conflict legacy in Kosovo efforts to address the consequences of the conflict in Kosovo. To achieve this besides having thorough research on war, the project aims to empower the youth by providing them with opportunities to research transitional justice by encouraging them to conduct research, contribute, and promote specific topics of transitional justice. The necessity for meaningful educational reform, particularly in addressing the complexities of the war within the national curriculum will be addressed through a thorough needs assessment for the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology placing the focus on the extent to which transitional justice is currently addressed within Kosovo’s educational framework.

This project comes at a time when the public discourse is very quickly heavily loaded with increased doses of mono-ethnic narratives, thus forgetting the multi-ethnic character of Kosovo. Through the research by BIRN Kosovo, it is intended to explain in detail some aspects of the war and to adress the urgency that the new generations begin to learn properly about everything that happened in Kosovo, with transitional justice principles included.

Through research grants for youth, it seeks to give research opportunities to young students to give their contribute to the field of transitional justice by ensuring them a capacity-building workshop and mentorship up to finalization of their research project.

Donors:

UNDP, British Embassy

Main objectives:

Objective 1: To bridge the knowledge gap on the Kosovo War and enhance public understanding through objective, multi-perspective, in-depth research and public discourse

Objective 2: To cultivate a future-oriented approach to transitional justice by engaging youth in research and providing insight into the existing state of transitional justice education within the University of Prishtina.

Main activities:
Activity 1: War Heritage Research and Documentation – Research, draft and finalize the research paper

Activity 2: Organize a conference to disseminate the findings of the research paper

Activity 3: Organize a TV debate

Activity 4: Promoting research on transitional justice through student grants: Drafting, finalizing, and opening the call for the students of the University of Prishtina

Activity 5:  Capacity Building Workshop

Activity 6: Publishing student’s research papers on BIRN’s website

Activity 7: Preparation and Submission of Educational Needs Assessment

Target groups:

The project’s main target audience includes students, educators, researchers, journalists, survivors and witnesses of Kosovo War as well as policymakers.

Implementer:

BIRN Kosovo