This report/policy paper seeks to provide an outline of the waste management system within Kosovo, particularly focusing on the role of ‘informal waste collectors’. It details the situation of waste collection in Kosovo and the part informal waste collectors play in this. It then turns to the particular circumstances, difficulties and human rights abuses the informal waste collectors are encountering. Following this, a number of recommendations to improve Kosovo’s waste collection industry and most importantly how to lift the informal waste collectors out of poverty and meet their rights as proper citizens, are made based in part on the experiences of ECMI Kosovo and other organizations in this sector. Kosovo’s new law on Social Enterprise represents a significant particular opportunity for this purpose.

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Education represents a fundamental pillar of Kosovo’s legal framework for the protection and promotion of the rights of communities including the right to receive public education in their own language. At current, there are two parallel education systems operating in Kosovo. One of them is run by the Government of Kosovo, more specifically the Ministry of Education, Science and Technologies (MEST), which provides education in Albanian, Turkish and Bosnian languages. The other is run by the Republic of Serbia and its Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development and provides education in the Serbian language. These two education systems in Kosovo do not recognize each other and there is no convergence between the systems at any level: they have been coexisting separately since 1999. This study’s remit does not include the legal status of the parallel Serbian education system in Kosovo

There is a remarkable lack of knowledge on the Serbian education system in Kosovo. No study thus far has mapped the exact outreach of Serbian-language schools in Kosovo or the conditions under which such schools operate. In light of this, ECMI Kosovo’s mission is to outline the factual situation regarding the current conditions of the Serbian education in Kosovo, and to map and assess its quality, challenges and shortcoming through measurable indicators inspired by EU educational standards. The goal is to address necessities by means of a detailed policy for the advancement of the education provided in the Serbian language in Kosovo

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This report’s primary aim is to provide a discussion of the issues surrounding the implementation of the International Human Rights Treaties named in the constitution of Kosovo, with the hope of fostering further debate. It analyzes the implementation of these treaties within the judicial system of Kosovo. The paper first explains Kosovo’s legal relationship with international law, particularly international human rights law. Subsequently, the difficulties of directly implementing such laws are discussed; the report also considers other factors hindering the implementation of these treaties within Kosovo particularly. The report then provides some conclusions on the basis of the analysis provided.

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This policy paper focuses on the limited language skills of municipal public servants as one of the major gaps in securing language equality at the municipal level. The paper builds on evaluations from long-term practical engagement of ECMI Kosovo in providing language training in Serbian and Albanian to municipal public servants, complemented with findings from earlier studies on the implementation of the Law on the Use of Languages at the municipal level, and cross-references to case-studies from other multilingual countries in Europe.

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This policy paper first provides an outline of the issue and lists the grounds for the uneven quality of legislative documents in Serbian and Albanian. It then highlights the impact of the weak implementation of the law on the use of languages in the domain of legislation, in particular on access to equal rights in Kosovo, and finally presents a number of concrete recommendations for concentrated government action in order to undo the linguistic inconsistencies between Serbian and Albanian legislation in Kosovo.
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The project creates favourable working conditions for one of the most disadvantaged groups in our society, Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptian community members, by offering them opportunities to improve their social welfare, reduce unemployment and create sustainable incomes for themselves and their families. The project provides support to these members, who collect recyclable materials in an informal capacity, by using and expanding existing business models that they have established by supporting them to improve their skills, broaden their access to resources and capacity to collect recyclable waste.