10 Years After: Kosovo Is Its Own Country
FrontLines - August 2009
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Primary school students wear T-shirts with the USAID logo received following a football match victory in Kufce, a village in Kosovo's Gjilan/Gnjilane municipality.
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Before it became the world’s newest country last year, Kosovo was under U.N. administration
for 10 years, since 1999, when nearly a million people or about half the country’s
population fled from their homes because of Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbian regime.
That led to a 78-day bombing
campaign by NATO to stop the violence—one of the last battles of the breakup of Yugoslavia into the independent
countries of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Serbia.
During and immediately after the 1999 conflict, Kosovo needed urgent humanitarian assistance to house, feed, and tend to the basic needs of an enormous number of displaced people. That was followed by programs to restore civil and economic life in Kosovo and assistance to create governing institutions.
Innovative Response
Since 1999, $1.2 billion in U.S. assistance has been committed
to the reconstruction of Kosovo and to building self-governing institutions and a viable economy.
USAID has helped the country reach its 10-year milestone, including helping the private sector to develop. July marked the 10th anniversary
of USAID’s mission to Kosovo.
“Kosovars often refer to USAID as ‘a hand of a friend,’” said Patricia Rader, director of the USAID office in Kosovo. “USAID has a special relationship
with our Kosovar partners, which provides unique opportunities
and imposes special responsibilities.
“We strive to provide carefully
considered assistance and guidance to help the world’s newest country move forward on its path to a stable and prosperous
multiethnic democracy.”
Results
Kosovo, a country about the size of Connecticut with approximately 2 million people, declared its independence on Feb. 17, 2008. Two months later, on April 9, its new constitution
was born. And, in May and June of 2009, Kosovo became a member of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
Kosovo is recognized by 60 countries, and is working to strengthen its economy and democratic institutions.
The country has established the Advocacy and Resource Center for civil society organizations.
There are now two national, independent and self-sustaining television stations, and a television transmission network that reaches 70 percent of the population.
“If we didn’t have USAID, the media sector in Kosovo would have been much poorer,” said Leke Zherka, executive director of Kohavision TV in the capital
Pristina. “I consider the establishment of the Kosovo Terrestrial Transmission Network, support to the development of two private national TV stations—Kohavizion
and RTV 21—among the most important projects that were implemented by the USAID in Kosovo.”
Investments in the country total about $58 million over the last four years as part of a USAID project that supported
businesses. Client sales have increased by $140 million over that time and 6,700 jobs have been created.
Basic government functions—such as tax collection—
have been beefed up and collection rates have more than doubled in the last few years.
USAID’s work is now entering a new phase, helping
the government reduce school shifts from four to two. USAID is renovating schools to reduce overcrowding,
including the Iliria Primary School annex in Pristina.
Vice President Joe Biden, who addressed the Assembly of Kosovo during his May 21 visit to the country, said the U.S. government remains committed to helping
Kosovo. He said that the United States has three essential policy objectives in Kosovo: to ensure that Kosovo independence is irreversible,
to ensure that its territorial
integrity is inviolable, and to promote the creation of a multiethnic society.
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