This activity aims to identify the best and most tangible ways and initiatives of enhancing regional cooperation in the Western Balkans by identifying and focusing on the most significant regional initiatives which can bring about practical benefits for all citizens in the region, as many are unaware of the many initiatives in the region and the benefits they bring.

The three-year project “Elevate peace & state building agenda and advancing European agenda” targets a broad range of stakeholders who affect change, such as civil society, governments, political parties and media.

Overall Objective: Elevate peace, state-building, and European agenda, through consensus building, inclusive policymaking, expert input, increasing political and societal support for peace, educating political representatives, supporting regional cooperation, and advancing the implementation of reforms.

Through this project BPRG will provide an opportunity for all leaders, elected men and women, important public figures, ombudsperson, constitutional courts and other institutions, local actors and personalities and international supporters to be a major part in the locally led campaign and forum to promote the change of the quota.

This project aims at providing information in an accessible language to reach a public beyond the gender specialists. Men and women with varying knowledge and levels of gender awareness and gender analysis skills need to know about the range of possibilities and legal requirements. This project will produce one of the biggest outreach campaigns that will push for the initiation of changing the quota. BPRG will later help the government and the assembly in the process of amending legislation. The campaign will serve the purpose of brining the quota change issue back to the agenda and mobilise support for it.

Overall Objective: Promoting the change of the women representation quota by launching a digital campaign calling for change and endorsing Gender Equality.

This project aims to further strengthen the Women Caucus’ impact and expand its reach throughout Kosovo’s seven (7) districts. The Project activities aim to establish networks with the minority women in the municipal Assemblies in addressing gender issues both at the local and national level. The project will improve media representation of the work of women MPs and initiate public discourse at the local and national level, forging a sustainable relationship between the caucus and the media through continuous activities (e.g. conferences, workshops and televised interviews).

Overall Objective: Strengthen the Regional Outreach and the Media Relationship of the Women Caucus.

This project aims to advance Kosovo’s EU Agenda through strengthening institutions, and regional cooperation with participation from all levels of society. The two year project targets a broad range of stakeholders who can affect change, such as civil society, governments, political parties and media. Activities encourage and promote participation from women, ethnic minorities and youth to fully empower decision making processes and build a culture of inclusion. The project is structured into three major components, Political Dialogue, Regional Cooperation and Enhancing Checks and Balances.

Planned activities foresee high level, roundtables, research, capacity building, providing expertise, partnership building and outreach.

Specific Objectives:

Foster dialogue and consensus of political parties by encouraging inclusion of women, youth and civil society and educate future political leaders.
Promote and support dialogue on normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia, bi-lateral relations between Kosovo and Bosnia Herzegovina, and enhance regional cooperation by engaging institutions, media and civil society.
Strengthen good governance and rule of law through research and debate of legal gaps and construct harmony between the constitution, political system and governing branches.

This grant supports BPRG to enhance its impact on the Policy Dialogue, Policy Forum and the dialogue for the normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia. With regards to the latter component, one of the main project aims is to advance cooperation between CSOs of Kosovo and Serbia, and mobilise efforts to support a formal consortium of think-tankers whose aim will be to support the normalisation of relations between the two states and societies.

This grant has resulted in the formation of the Think Tankers Policy Forum (BPRG, KCSS and D4D)

 And the Kosovo Serbia Policy Advocacy Group (KSPAG)

Objectives:

The Project aims to achieve greater impact of think tank production through four separate but mutually supportive component:

• Policy Dialogue

In reaction to the persistent political crisis, BPRG has designed and launched a locally-driven Policy Dialogue between the ruling parties and the opposition in hopes of halting the crisis and achieving a reform-driven agreement. The Dialogue roundtable was successfully launched in March 2016 by BPRG, where we act as an impartial mediator and facilitator, as well as an adviser on expert policy matters. The project timeframe of Policy Dialogue is one to three years starting March 2016. The aim is to foster political stability and establish a culture of dialogue cooperation between political actors, institutions and CSOs.

• Policy Forum

Balkans Group is in the course of establishing a POLICY FORUM, a high-level advocacy of think-tankers in Kosovo. Bearing in mind the limited capacity of the civil society to impact policy change, BPRG took the lead to develop a project aimed at amplifying the ability of CSOs to affect policy-making. We plan to initiate a dialogue between think tanks and institutions, through joint publications, joint research and advocacy initiatives with fellow CSOs. Through this intervention, we aim to pool expertise of think tanks on cross-cutting issues, produce common research and policy papers, organise coordinated and joint public events, and to mobilise institutions to work on topics that consolidate Kosovo’s state. This activity will strengthen local think tanks’ ability to effectively advocate on their way to becoming sufficiently empowered to trigger change at the state-level.   Dialogue for the normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia

• Dialogue for the normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia

The Dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia has been severely criticised by the opposition and civil society in Kosovo, where nationalism has already gained grounds against what is perceived as a corrupt governing elite making too many concessions to Belgrade. BPRG, on the other hand, perceives any setbacks to the Dialogue as damaging to the fledgling state of Kosovo, and plans to engage think tanks in Kosovo and Serbia in designing and developing joint programmes that are conducive to the normalisation of relations. We are hopeful that the project will conclude with the establishment of a joint consortium between local think tanks and their counterparts in Serbia. Indeed, BPRG has already initiated and spearheaded drafting of a joint letter by Kosovo and Serbian think tanks calling on the EU institutions and member states to support civil society in its efforts to enhance normalization of relations between the two countries at state-to-state level but also at societal levels. The initiative arose an interest of the EU High Representative to support creation of a consortium of Kosovo and Serbian CSOs for the normalisation of relations, under the leadership of the Balkans Group.

• Policy Reporting

 BPRG is committed to continuing to produce quality reports based on field research, and to actively advocate for institutional reform and policy-change. We aim to utilise our expertise to support progress in areas crucial to Kosovo’s state building and EU integration efforts, namely institution-building democratic consolidation, community integration and reconciliation and rule of law.

Led by BPRG, this project seeks to promote and communicate the benefits of the EU facilitated technical dialogue on the normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia to the wider public by focusing on a number of communication and outreach activities, peer to peer cooperation, research and local engagement.

Objectives include:

Broaden the support for the Belgrade-Pristina EU facilitated dialogue
Review the citizens perspective on the dialogue and its processes
Facilitate cooperation and networking among youth, CSOs, opinion makers and media
Enhance communication and foster citizen’s progressive perspective
Establish a standing group of CSOs and think tanks capable of advocacy and support
The Kosovo Serbia Policy Advocacy Group, will implement this action and is composed of 8 regional CSOs: Balkans Policy Research Group (BPRG), Democracy for Development (D4D), Kosovo Centre for Security Studies (KCSS), and NGO AKTIV in Kosovo; Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence (BFPE), European Movement in Serbia (EMinS), Belgrade Center for Security Policy (BCSP), Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (YUCOM) in Serbia.

This project aims to advance Kosovo’s EU Agenda through strengthening institutions, and regional cooperation with participation from all levels of society. The two year project targets a broad range of stakeholders who can affect change, such as civil society, governments, political parties and media. Activities encourage and promote participation from women, ethnic minorities and youth to fully empower decision making processes and build a culture of inclusion. The project is structured into three major components, Political Dialogue, Regional Cooperation and Enhancing Checks and Balances.

Planned activities foresee high level, roundtables, research, capacity building, providing expertise, partnership building and outreach.

Specific Objectives:

• Foster dialogue and consensus of political parties by encouraging inclusion of women, youth and civil society and educate future political leaders.
• Promote and support dialogue on normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia, bi-lateral relations between Kosovo and Bosnia Herzegovina, and enhance regional cooperation by engaging institutions, media and civil society.
• Strengthen good governance and rule of law through research and debate of legal gaps and construct harmony between the constitution, political system and governing branches.

Through desk and field research this project aimed at understanding and facilitating the construction of a more enabling environment in research, education and innovation with a particular focus dedicated to strengthening EU funds absorption capacities in the Western Balkans Region. The Regional Assessment directly contributed to enhanced deliberation with relevant state institutions to pay heed and invest in targeted areas. BPRG led the Kosovo component.

The overall goal of the project is to improve the capacity of journalists for reporting on the rule of law progress in Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina and to support better inter-sectoral cooperation between bar chambers, journalists and civil society within each country and in the region.

In order to achieve the overall goal specific objectives will be:

• Tracking the quality of media reporting on specific issues
• Empowering professional journalists for professional reporting and respect for the presumption of innocence, protection of minors, securing the identity of protected witnesses, etc.
• Raise the level of communication and exchange of information between advocates who are well introduced to fair trial standards and journalists
• Creating a sustainable united front for tracking the rule of law implementation in all five partner countries
• Creating new lines of communications between bar chambers in the region and CSOs

The project is aimed at strengthening BPRG’s internal capacities (i.e. provision of staff trainings, acquisition of statistical software) and improving the quality of its outputs. The grant enables BPRG to fully utilise its existing and incoming human capacity and increase its ability to successfully advocate for policy change.

Objectives:

The proposed project seeks to achieve the following objectives:

• Enhance the quality of research outputs of BPRG experts by acquiring advanced quantitative skills and tools
• Boost the development of a new programmatic area and complement the existing expertise with the necessary instruments for high quality research and analysis
• Develop tools and human resources for better visibility and impact of BPRG’s work
• Employ innovative tools to increase the interest of institutions, media and public in the work of BPRG
• Consolidate internal governance structures to fully utilise the potential of the Board of Trustee and the Advisory Board for contributing to BPRG’s further development.