WAITING FOR UNMIK: Local Administration in Kosovo (ICG Balkans Report N° 79)
WAITING FOR UNMIK: Local Administration in Kosovo (ICG Balkans Report N° 79)

Author(s): Author Not Specified
Subject(s): Civil Society, Governance
Published by: ICG International Crisis Group
Summary/Abstract: This report seeks to identify the main reasons why this uncomfortable position has been reached, and identify a way forward. UNMIK’s administrators have arrived late in their assigned municipality, with little clear guidance about the job facing them and the circumstances they would be working in. Lack of funding and personnel leaves them in a position where they continuously have to improvise, while still waiting for guidelines from headquarters in Prishtinë/Priština. They are in many cases forced to tell the self-proclaimed Albanian communal authorities, which they cannot formally recognise but must work with on a day-to-day basis, to wait a little longer. The waiting is then handed down to the population, which remains unserved and unserviced into the fifth month. Growing impatience can be observed at every level. This report argues for a negotiated and therefore more pragmatic approach: while the UN should hold the political authority in municipalities, the existing structure should be co-opted as a non-political executive.

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