"Vision for Change" at the Jubilee Local Governance Conference

The first session, ‘Vision for Change’, was held on Wednesday at the Jubilee Local Governance Conference entitled ’10 Years after Decentralisation and the Constitution of Local Government – the challenges of a decade, the journey into the second decade’.

The panellists of this thematic session were the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, Mr Ramush Haradinaj, the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Norway to Kosovo, Mr Per Strand Sjaastad, the Swiss Ambassador to Kosovo, Mr Jean-Hubert Lebet, and the Executive Director of the KLGI Institute, Mr Besnik Muçaj.

The panel addressed in particular the challenges, effectiveness, efficiency and specific potential of local governance in Kosovo, as well as the progress of democratic and local developments in the region.

The outcomes of the first session show that particular importance must be placed on finding forms and mechanisms of effective communication and cooperation between governments and municipalities. In the coming decade, shared visions must be established jointly between parties and the authorities of both levels of government for the sake of sustainable development.

After the first panel, institutional actors from the Republic of Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania continued with the next panel to address ‘Towards Reforms’.