OSCE Mission presents “An Assessment of the Establishment, Functioning, and Performance of Municipal Community Participation and Representation Mechanisms”

PRISHTINË/PRIŠTINA, 6 October 2021 – The municipal communities protection mechanisms have demonstrated gradual advancement in reaching their full potential, with incremental progress in meeting their substantive duties. Gaps in the legislative and policy framework continue to exist, however, the progress of these mechanisms has shown that they are capable of positively impacting communities across Kosovo, concludes the OSCE Mission in Kosovo’s report presented today. 

The report assesses the four key municipal-level mechanisms that have been created to promote and protect the rights and interests of communities at the municipal level, namely the Communities’ Committees, Municipal Offices for Communities and Return, Deputy Mayors for Communities and Deputy Chairpersons of the Municipal Assembly for Communities. It evaluates their compliance with the legal and policy framework, composition and performance.

“Protecting the values and interests shared by non-majority communities at the municipal level is essential to ensure that its members are able to significantly contribute to the society as a whole. Municipalities are crucial nodes of governance and critical in the promotion and protection of the rights and interests of communities, also through these mechanisms, and we believe that stronger co-operation between the government and municipal institutions is instrumental in the establishment and performance of these mechanisms,” said Nadica Pavlovska, Chief of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo Communities Section.

The report recommends that government and municipal level institutions strengthen the mandates of municipal communities’ protection mechanisms by incorporating their duties and responsibilities from policy documents into sub-legal acts. This will make them legally binding and will strengthen the government level ownership and sustainability over the process of monitoring the establishment and functioning of these mechanisms.

Full report is available at: https://www.osce.org/mission-in-kosovo/499819