Category: Publications

Since March 2020, when the first confirmed cases of Covid-19 occurred in Kosovo and the lockdown took place, the main societal concern has been the ability of a developing country to manage an unraveling, unprecedented crisis. It quickly became clear that the virus does not discriminate in its impact, leaving us to understand that it does not select victims and that its consequences can be unimaginable. This is best shown by the extremely frightening statistics of this virus, where the number of positive cases worldwide to date is about 93.2 million, with over 2 million deaths, including Kosovo, which so far counts over 55,000 positive cases, with a total of over 1,400 dead - statistics that are growing day by day. However, what is even more dramatic is that the Covid-19 crisis is not only a health crisis, but also a widespread socioeconomic crisis affecting vulnerable members of the society the most.

To read the full report:

📄 Program & Stimulus Packages After The Economic Crisis & Workers Rights In Kosovo 

This report is the final result from the activity aimed at measuring the application of labor law legislation in the private sector in Kosovo. The report makes an overview of labor legislation and laws related to health and safety at work, as well as, the institutional framework for implementing them. It further makes an overview of expected/initiated changes in labor-related legislation before discussing the findings from the field research with private sector companies, before presenting the findings from the survey with businesses.

To read the full report, click here:

Këtu mund ta gjeni verzionin e fundit të broshurës së Iniciativa Kosovare për Stabilitet:

📄 2018 IKS Fakte

The end of April is marked throughout the world using various awareness-raising campaigns that aim to promote new trends in the field of Health and Safety at work as well as raising awareness on the problem of injuries, diseases and deaths at the workplace.

In Kosovo’s daily newspapers these are mere everyday news. They are chronicles that provide chronical rather than analytical information. Headlines such as: ‘’Another worker dies while working in construction’’ are common. We lack news that give us details that accompany such events. Uncertainties as to who the victim worked for, whether he had a contract, whether he had health insurance, whether work conditions or safety were subject of inspection, the circumstances of his death, whether state institutions requested accountability, whether the family of the victim requested accountability, and many other questions in most cases remain unanswered. That is the reason why such questions are not reported. Moreover, these cases are not treated as part of a phenomenon, and as a result the phenomenon is not treated as a series of problems.

In order to start a comprehensive discussion on the background and subsequently the development of processes linked to deaths in workplaces, Kosovo Stability Initiative – IKS conducted this research dealing with fatal accidents at the workplace. The study aims to analyze what happens after these tragedies happen, respectively provide as much details on this growing problem; in order to see who is to blame, what were the sanctions, respectively whether the families of the victims were compensated.

To read the full report, click here:

Silent Deaths.

In order to describe the one-decade disregard of political parties towards social issues and marginalized groups in general, IKS publishes this analysis that focuses on both the space that political parties / coalitions give to social issues in their programs and the quality of their offers. I did. The youngest state in Europe offers little social protection to its population and fails to address even the basic needs of marginalized groups. While billions of euros are being spent on infrastructure projects, very little will be shown to improve the social security system by any of the major political parties.

To read the report, click: Social Policies in Political Party Programs

Kosovo is a small country: It is also one of the youngest in Europe. The average age of its 1.78m people is 30 and only 6.2% are 65 and older.1 With limited voting clout the elderly have long been neglected by our politicians. Unlike amongst some of our neighbours we do not have a powerful pensioners’ party. But the nature of Kosovar society does not help either. Because the elderly are almost always cared for by their families, their interests are neglected by society at large. They are ignored by civil society and there is little incentive for government or the private sector to establish specialised care facilities for the elderly, help those who have lost their independence or ensure access to proper social services which are today either nonexistent or ill-adapted to the nature of our society. This is the context of this study into the living conditions of Kosovo’s elderly who are here defined as anyone aged 65 or over.

^{To read the full report, click here: Don't Get Old}  

  FAKTE 2017

This toolkit was prepared in order to provide an overview of international and domestic standards and principles on public consultations, and advocacy efforts during law and policy making processes within the Government. Its central aim is to provide guidance to civil society on how to engage in consultation processes in Kosovo, following especially the adoption of the Government Regulation 5/2016 on Minimal Standards for the Public Consultation Process, on 29 April 2016 (hereinafter as “Government Regulation No. 5/2016”).

To read the manual, click here: Engaging in Public Consultation