Kosovo’s Anti-Corruption Agenda Enhanced by Policy Advisory Mission

March 25, 2019

The primary goal of UNDP Seoul Policy Centre’s (USPC) Development Solutions Partnership (DSP) is to support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In line with the DSP programme, the Centre shares Korea’s development experience and innovative policy tools with other countries by connecting them to organizations and institutions who have extensive knowledge and expertise on a given topic. The Anti-Corruption leg of the programme, which promotes the achievement of SDG Goal 16, for example, has introduced and bridged developing countries to Korea’s Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission (ACRC). In turn, ACRC has shared the mechanisms and processes of its proven tools, such as the Corruption Risk Assessment (CRA) and the Anti-Corruption Initiative Assessment (AIA).

Although new partner countries are selected for the DSPs every year, each partnership is carefully and intentionally sought with the objective of providing long-term, contextualized development support specific to these countries. Naturally, USPC continues to follow up with these countries over several years to ensure that there is continued momentum and realization towards SDG achievement while addressing related global development issues.

As part of the Centre’s continued partnership support, a policy advisory mission to Kosovo was planned to enhance the country’s efforts to institutionalize anti-corruption initiatives. Kosovo was selected as a DSP partner country in 2018 with the intent of benchmarking ACRC’s CRA tool to support the country’s corruption-proofing of legislation, an issue still relatively novel in the country. Over the past year, the partnership’s activities, including a high-level webinar and a week-long study mission by the Kosovan delegation to Korea, has helped establish political will and widespread national interest towards building a corruption-free system in Kosovo. Relevant legislation articles to introduce a CRA-like mechanism were drafted for the Kosovo legislation system following the study mission to Korea, and subsequently submitted to the Ministry of Justice, which will soon be sent to the Assembly of Kosovo. A three-day policy advisory mission by Mr. Euy-Whan Kim, Senior Advisor on Anti-Corruption at UNDP and secondee from ACRC, was organized by USPC and UNDP Kosovo to provide further technical knowledge and policy insights for Kosovan officials following these significant milestones.

Kosovo’s commitment and priority towards establishing a corruption-free administration was clearly seen through the number of high-level leadership who met with Mr. Kim over the three days, from 18 to 20 February 2019. Multiple bilateral meetings with the Minister of Justice, President of the Supreme Court, Deputy Chief Prosecutor, Director of the Anti-Corruption Agency, and Chair of the Legislative Committee (Member of Parliament) were held, which focused on sharing past experiences and enhancing existing capacities to fight national corruption. Furthermore, Mr. Kim held an intensive, one-day technical workshop for public officials from various agencies and civic groups on the last day. Participants, which included members from the Anti-Corruption Agency, Ministry of Justice, the Office of the President, and the Assembly of the Kosovo Legislative Committee and Civil Society, took part in training sessions that emphasized the importance of establishing and adopting preventive measures for the public administration to effectively fight corruption.

As a ‘knowledge translator’ and project supporter, USPC saw once again how pertinent and timely engagement with Korean partners and counterparts can provide substantial, fruitful support towards sustainable development. For Kosovo, Mr. Kim’s in-depth advisory based on his experience at ACRC served as another critical opportunity to advance the DSP agenda towards SDG attainment. “Mr. Kim left a lasting impression on our high-level counterparts with whom he met and with the participants of the workshop he led,” said UNDP Kosovo’s Chief Technical Specialist, Mato Meyer. “This was exactly the type of support that both our Kosovo partners and UNDP Kosovo needed.”