A Voice For the Voiceless

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The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

Kosovo – Rebuilding After the War

AP staffers visited Kosovo in 2000 to produce this series of On the Record - Rebuliding After the War as a follow up to the 1999 series: Birth and Rebirth of Civil Society.

For more information about post-conflict Kosovo and civil society, see AP's coverage in the section below: Kosovo - Civil Society after the War.

Issue 1: Understanding the Parallel Society
This issue of On the Record asks why, in the face of so many difficulties, the international community has failed to make more use of Kosovo's civil society. It also addresses the question: how can outsiders best help to strengthen Kosovar civil society without imposing foreign values and sapping its spirit?

Issue 2: War Crimes as a Catalyst of Civil Society
Issue 2 tells of how the immensity of the crimes committed in the war has given civil society in Kosovo a renewed sense of purpose. Particular attention is given to the Humanitarian Law Center, which investigates those who are missing in Kosovo and also those who are detained in Serbian jails.

Issue 3: Mind Over Matter
The use of the disabled for the reconstruction of Kosovo is the topic of this issue. It tells of how aid agencies usually neglect partnering with organizations that represent the disabled and how this is an oversight that must be remedied. The issue recommends that aid agencies look to people and organizations like Halit Ferizi and his organization HANDIKOS for a source of strength.

Issue 4: Gender Bias
Providing psychosocial support for traumatized women has become something of a growth industry, generating a huge number of projects in Bosnia and now Kosovo. The question is whether this model of donor aid - the NGO-administered project - is the right type of intervention. Does it really address a need? Or does it undermine the unique spark and spirit that motivates women to care for their own in the aftermath of a great trauma? This issue of On the Record attempts some answers.

Issue 5: Minority Politics
This issue deals with the topic of minorities living in Kosovo, particularly the Roma. It tells of the creation of a new political party for minorities, the Ashkaelia Democratic Party of Kosovo, led by its president, Sabit Rrahamani. This is a controversial development since many think the Ashkali claim a separate identity from the Roma in order to distance themselves from the hated group. Also, many see the new party as a vehicle for the ambitions of Mr Rrahamani.

Issue 6: Earth Day Special
The environment is the topic of this issue as it was released a few days before Earth Day. It details how young Kosovars are using the internet to clean up Prishtina and profiles one young ecologist, Guri Shkodra, co-founder of the Young Ecologists of Kosovo.

Issue 7: Environment, Women, War Crimes
Issue 7 follows up on three subjects covered in this series - the environment, women, and war crimes. It covers the response to Issue 6 on the environment, current events that show how difficult and important assisting women's groups are, and a letter from the International Crisis Group concerning war crimes.

Issue 8: Village Democracy
This issue will profile an imaginative aid program by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) - the Office of Transitional Initiatives (OTI), which attempts to build village democracy in Kosovo.

Issue 9: The Women of Kosova, Revisited
This issue suggests that the UN Mission in Kosovo is making the mistake of omitting a gender perspective in its efforts. The issue also highlights the end of the four month freeze on US contributions to the UNHCR, which will help the Kosovo Women's Initiative.

Issue 10: Media War
This issue reports on the extraordinary confrontation taking place between the UN Mission in Kosovo and the media. It has enormous implications for the two main questions asked in this series: how is civil society contributing toward Kosovo's reconstruction, and whether international aid is enhancing or undermining that contribution.

Issue 11: Wired for Reconstruction
This issue is a follow up to the creation of the Internet Project Kosovo (IPKO), the project that brought the Internet to Kosovo following the war, which was first mentioned in Issue 10 of On the Record - The Birth and Rebirth of Civil Society in Kosovo. This issue tries to address some of the questions that remain, such as: Can the new IPKO function on its own without the backing of the IRC? Is its technology simply too sophisticated for Kosovo? What is its impact on business?

Issue 12: The Power of Advocacy
This final issue asks whether the international community has made use of civil society in Kosovo, the answer being, for the most part, that it has not.