• Kosovo Today: NGOs could stir “powerful social movement” [third in series]
By MAGGIE I. JARUZEL
Building and strengthening Kosovo’s physical and governmental infrastructure remains an important concern, especially following the adoption of its formal constitution on June 15 -- making it the world’s newest nation, says Fron Nahzi, vice president of programs at East-West Management Institute (EWMI).
“Right now, stability is even more important than civic development. How can citizens become engaged and responsible if they do not feel their country is secure?”
For many residents, national stability translates to having access to basic necessities such as adequate electricity and water, Nahzi adds.
Since 1991, he has worked in the Western Balkans, where he was born. Although he and his family moved to the United States after his parents became political refugees when he was a child, Nahzi’s career path led him back to the region.
A Mott grantee, EWMI was founded in 1988 as an international nonprofit organization that promotes the rule of law, civil society and free markets globally. In addition to its Kosovo office, EWMI has staff based in several other countries in the Western Balkans, Southeast Asia, and also the U.S.
Nahzi’s Kosovo work includes helping develop a strong civil society sector -- evidenced by vibrant nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Following the end of the conflict in 1999, new NGOs mushroomed throughout Kosovo. Unfortunately, Nahzi says, many organizations were created in response to donors' interests, not civic responsibility.
“We had groups doing whatever there was donor money to do –- whether or not it was in their mission statement. There was so much money available in 1999 and 2000 that people were literally getting money to plant grass in front of restaurants,” he says, adding that the funds were given with little follow up to determine whether they were spent effectively.
“Years later, along come people asking for accountability,” Nahzi says. “For the majority of NGOs that appeared as a totally new concept.”
Another new concept for most people was shared decisionmaking, which Nahzi implements by encouraging grassroots groups to work with local municipalities to identify and address their community’s challenges.
“When there’s a common cause, people work together,” he says, adding that EWMI promotes ways for citizens to see themselves as “agents of change.”
Although divisions still exist between the country’s majority Albanian population and its Serbian minority, Nahzi says, each local municipality now provides a fund for multi-ethnic projects to encourage shared decisionmaking between groups that waged war against one another in the late 1990s.
Together, they are rallying around key issues, such as the critical need for more jobs in a country where 50 to 60 percent of its residents are unemployed.
In addition, most Albanians and Serbs are united in their efforts to address the nation’s inability to deliver education and health care services to its citizens. They also are equally frustrated with Kosovo’s ongoing water and electricity shortages, Nahzi says.
“It’s a Catch-22 situation. There is such a major shortage of basic services that people say, ‘Why should we pay taxes?’ But when no one pays taxes there are poor public services.”
According to Nahzi, Kosovo has made little progress in addressing its major problems because the country has been strapped with a unique and ineffective form of government. Currently, the United Nations’ Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), the European Union, and citizen-elected officials share power.
The governing system is difficult to understand, he says, and even more difficult to maneuver.
“After we [EWMI] published a citizens’ guide describing the governing structure in Kosovo, parliamentary members asked for copies of it because they wanted a way to understand the parallel system, too!”
But that three-pronged system is expected to dissolve now that the Constitution has been formally adopted, making the country’s government look more like a typical democracy.
While there is much hope associated with that next step toward total independence as a nation, many major obstacles remain, Nahzi says. For him, two of the biggest challenges facing Kosovo’s citizens are fatigue and frustration. Still, he says, it’s crucial for citizens to stay involved and keep holding their government accountable.
“The people of Kosovo wanted independence based on the rule of law, not dictatorship, like they had with [Slobodan] Milosevic. We can — and should — develop a system with high principles and transparency. We have to hold ourselves and our government to a higher standard.”