What Matters In Kosovo: Communities’ Own Measures of Aid Effectiveness

 

In this important transition moment for Kosovo — after nine years of undetermined status — the view from communities offers critical lessons for structuring effective policy and aid for continued stability and recovery.

Responding to an open-ended inquiry regarding the most significant changes in terms of stability and recovery since the active conflict in the late 1990s, Kosovans from 13 diverse communities identified the issues, actors and approaches that have had the greatest impact on these changes. With projected financial needs for Kosovo estimated at €1.25 billion for 2008-2010, local and international actors should heed Kosovan’s own measures of effectiveness.

The key findings of this report indicate that

• Stability and recovery is not primarily “politics”
• Stability and recovery is locally driven and owned
• Gaps exist between local priorities and policy initiatives
• Community leadership narrows the gaps
• Continued recovery requires a cross-sectoral, integrated approach

Since beginning work in Kosovo in 1993, Mercy Corps Kosovo’s focus has shifted from relief to recovery, to long-term development. Over a 15 year period, Mercy Corps Kosovo has implemented over 30 programs worth in excess of US$50 million and currently operates from a Head Office in Prishtinë / Priština, covering 27 Municipalities.

This research is part of The LEAPP Project (Learning for Effective Aid Practice and Policy), a two-year, multi-country study initiated by Mercy Corps to understand the impact of community-led programming in conflict and post-conflict transitional environments. Pilot research was conducted in Kosovo from May-June 2008.

Access “What Matters In Kosovo” here.

Challenges with community based tourism

This ODI opinion paper here provides a fairly harsh critique of development agencies’ attempts to foster community-based tourism. The main criticism is that these projects usually fail because they have not been set up sustainably and the article points to some interesting facts and figures (e.g. a recent survey across the Americas show that many of the CBT accommodation providers have only 5% occupancy). The counter solution proposed in the piece is that we should in fact be doing more to include the poor in mainstream tourism and there are more opportunities than have previously been perceived. In one project in Brazil a large mainstream resort increased its employment of local people by 40% in a year following training and an extra $2 million is now flowing into the local economy. I’m not sure I agree full-heartedly with the solutions proposed and think the critique may be a little harsh, but it definitely provides food for thought.

Food System in Crisis - Hunger and the Pursuit of Profit

The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace (a member of Caritas) has just published a new report on the effects of the global food system on smallholders, communities and farmers in the global south. The 22-page report, prepared with input and reflections from Development and Peace partners in the countries where it works in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, provides a Christian reflection on food and hunger, highlighting catholic social teaching on the issue. The report calls for a serious overhaul of the system that has led to the current global food crisis.

You can download the English version here, and read the synopsis here.

“Our increasingly fragile global food system is in major trouble. Decades of inappropriate economic and agricultural policies have finally become too much for farmers and people around the world to withstand. Decision-making power over one of the most primary elements of life – food – has been wrenched from the people who produce and need food, and placed in the hands of people who profit from its trade. The policies of the international financial institutions, and the World Trade Organization (WTO), shaped by the governments of the North, have systematically undermined the capacity of individuals and communities to access food, and the resources to grow their own.“

“This report explores the long-term causes of the global food emergency, as well as the specific current day factors that are converging to increase global hunger. It is based on the experience of Development and Peace’s partners in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.  As Milo Tanchuling, of the Freedom from Debt Coalition in the Philippines notes, ‘[t]oday’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions’”.

“It is imperative to bring agriculture back to its primary and basic function: to nourish local and national communities.“
- The Assembly of Quebec Catholic Bishops  May 1, 2008

Development as social transformation

Alejandro Bendaña (Harvard Ph.D. and founder of the Centro de Estudios Internacionales in Managua, Nicaragua) writes a provocative piece for FocusWeb (Focus on the Global South) (www.FocusWeb.org) called Alternative Financing for Development. It is short, readable, and challenges our usual assumptions about what ‘development’ is.

His thesis that ‘“Development aid” as practiced by the North is part of a system that generates deepening inequality and dependence across and within countries. In this context, it is a question of making aid less not more effective, of ending aid altogether, because on the whole it does more harm that good.‘ is not unusual in itself, but his concrete ideas for alternatives are interesting.

Technology for the Poor

As a techno-phobe who still doesn’t own her own cell phone (in part because of a traumatic experience in post-tsunami Sri Lanka where I had two mobiles which rang simultaneously every half hour, literally through the night!), I am fascinated by examples of how technology is improving (or hindering) development in poorer nations. This link to a BBC news article gives some really good concrete examples of how Reuters news, through a service called Market Light is being disseminated via text messages to farmers in India and enabling them to make real time decisions on how to improve their crops and get better services for them.

Unintended Consequences of Poverty Reduction

Read on for a summary of The Risks of Fighting Poverty too Well by Mark Lange, first published in the Christian Science Monitor. Or read the full article and see video footage here.

It is ironic that China’s stunning success in reducing poverty brings unintended consequences for the rest of the world. China’s breakthrough has created an explosion in greenhouse gases; it has triggered intense competition for resources which has led to China’s sponsorship of the world’s most savage and dysfunctional regimes. China’s enormous supply of workers makes it harder for other nations to contribute labor and trade in world markets. Within China, as poverty in declines, inequality is rising rapidly.