Thursday, 14 October, 1999New UNDP Kosovo report urges priority for investments in people over roads
For post-conflict reconstruction and development to be effective in Kosovo, organizations working in the Balkan province must adopt a new model of development assistance, according to a report recently commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme.
The publication, „Human Security in South East Europe,“ argues against the replication of the Marshall Plan - the post-World War II reconstruction strategy for Europe that focused on rebuilding the physical infrastructure.
„A better way to reduce conflict would be to invest less in roads and more in people and institutions,“ argue authors of the report who are analysts from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, FYR Macedonia and Romania. The report will be officially launched tomorrow (Friday, 15 October) in The Hague. It will be presented during a UNDP workshop „Beyond Transition: Ten Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall.“ The authors of the report write that unless new strategies are developed, reconstruction of South East Europe is doomed to failure.
The report argues that development assistance should concentrate on promoting regional cooperation and strengthening the states‘ capacity to provide social, economic and political security to their citizens. The human security approach, they write, is the only one that can combine post-conflict recovery with the prevention of future wars.
„In the end, the major criteria for the success of reconstruction should be improvements in access to education, better quality of health care, less unemployment and guaranteed political, civil and cultural rights,“ says the report.
Earlier this year, UNDP started work on a US$5 million programme to create jobs in war-torn villages in Kosovo that exemplify the principles outlined in the „Human Security in South East Europe“ report. The programme began in Çabra, a village where no houses were left standing after the war, and where officials said job creation is viewed as an essential component of Kosovo‘s rehabilitation and reconstruction.
More than 300,000 people fled the region during the Kosovo conflict, and they need jobs or other income-earning opportunities to ease their transition home. The employment programme being launched by UNDP and the European Commission, will help create 10,000 labor-intensive jobs for unemployed youth, demobilized soldiers and others affected by the war. Job opportunities will be created in projects to improve the environment, rehabilitate public infrastructure and restore basic services - such as water, sanitation and electricity. The programme will also provide vocational training to workers, and will purchase construction materials, tools and equipment from local vendors to give a boost to the local economy.
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