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

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and created Human Development
Strategy, the common policy vision
to lead, coordinate and multiply
social inclusion strategies will be
hard to generate and sustain. As a
result, while different government
ministries share responsibility for
different interventions promoting
social inclusion, such as paying cash
benefits, preparing young people
for working life and helping labour
market integration, there is little coordination
between them to maximize
investments. Lack of leadership
permeates into all central and
local authority mechanisms and
is the forerunner of other governance
challenges, including the
widespread problem of accountability.
Lack of accountable implementation
of legislation and policy
underlies social exclusion: social
equity is, by and large, enshrined in
Kosovo’s Constitution and its policies.
However, there is a major breakdown
between the passage of high-quality
legislation and its timely implementation.
The eagerness to align Kosovo
with European standards in the
political, economic and social sectors
has outrun the capacity of its
public officials. It has also, inadvertently,
de-emphasized necessary
budgetary and monitoring reforms
that should accompany the passage
of legislation. This means that
anti-discrimination legislation, for
example, cannot find expression in
sectoral health or education strategies
for lack of tailored budgeting
to address barriers to health
care access and school attendance
among disenfranchised groups.
The poor quality of Kosovo’s statistics,
underlined by the inability of
the Statistical Office of Kosovo to
provide and analyze disaggregated
data for policy-making, further undermines
accountability to ensure
that strategies are effective in minimizing
inequality.
92 | KOSOVO HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2010
• A disconnect has grown between
the public and governance cycles:
lack of accountable implementation
has created a profound gap
between governance and the governed
- who should, by right, be
participants in policy formulation
and monitoring and thereby a cornerstone
of institutional accountability.
Currently, Kosovans have
little say in the economic and socio-cultural
policies set by authorities,
nor ability to provide ideas
and feedback except at the voting
booth. Mechanisms to promote
such consultation are ad hoc and
do not account for the widespread
exclusion of the most socially isolated
groups. As a result, any consultation
that does take place is
geared almost entirely towards the
socially powerful and serves to aggravate
rather than minimize inequalities
in policy design.
• Lack of social cohesion and alienation
perpetuates exclusion across
sectors: the fault lines in Kosovan
society which legitimated an oppressive
regime during the decades
culminating in conflict undermine
social inclusion in two
ways: by perpetuating minority ostracization
through the dominance
of majority groups and by fostering
self-exclusion within groups unwilling
to integrate. Lack of social
cohesion prevents the formation
of community alliances to lobby
for better health and education
services, restricts access to labour
markets to friends and colleagues
rather than fostering a meritocracy,
shuts the door to political participation
on ethnic minorities and creates
an enclave mentality among
ethnic identities. Parallel Kosovo-
Serb and Kosovo-Albanian health
and education structures, and the
high level of exclusion from factor
markets, education and healthcare
of Kosovo-RAE, are merely indica-