Kosovo Human Development Report 2010 - UNDP Kosovo - United ...

of self-exclusion, whereby some groups
have lost the will to seize opportunities
for dialogue and participation.
To create a genuine momentum for
change, the report recommends concrete
actions that are not only necessary,
but should be well within the capacities
of the new administration:
• Institute high-level leadership on
social inclusion, including setting a
timeframe for creation of a Kosovo
Development Strategy. This is essential
to promote internal coherence
and cooperation on social
policies;
• Refocus on implementation of its
policies, introducing accountability,
a stronger evidence-base and
targeted budgeting into its processes;
• Introduce responsiveness into the
decentralization process, allowing
sector-specific remedial action for
the most urgent examples of exclusion;
• Institute a public consultation process
into policy design and formulation
that specifically reaches out
to excluded groups and makes extra
effort to account for self-exclusion;
• Launch a national campaign in
support of social cohesion, under
high-level leadership, to challenge
damaging and discriminatory social
norms and give excluded communities
and the broader majority
14 | KOSOVO HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2010
the opportunity to speak, form alliances
and understand their common
interests;
• Strengthen an inclusive labour
market, not only through job creation
and rural reform but also by
aligning the education system to
labour market needs and creating
job-seeker and adult education
schemes;
• Foster self-reliance through retargeting
Kosovo’s social assistance
programme to reach the poorest,
linking unemployment and child
benefits where possible to povertyalleviation
approaches (for example,
linking child benefits for older
children to school attendance) as
re-formulating social transfers to
reduce inequalities across regions;
Above all, Kosovo’s youth-heavy demography
puts it in a unique and
enviable position. Kosovan youth,
particularly its young women, can be
supported and promoted as the drivers
of an inclusive society. An energetic,
technologically literate and ambitious
generation needs to be connected to
outlets for economic enterprise and
political activism. Given the chance,
this group of nearly one million is ready
to step over cultural and ethnic divides
that have kept Kosovo far beneath its
potential for too long. They are the true
stakeholders in Kosovo’s future. They
have the most to gain from the opportunities
waiting inside them - and in
their society - to be unlocked.