Luxembourg's development cooperation - Annual report 2016

Kosovo is currently the only beneficiary country of Luxembourg’s development cooperation in the Balkans.

A new agreement for the 2017-2020 period was signed on 24 October 2016 in Pristina and a new budget of 30 million euros was allocated. The intervention sectors will continue in line with the previous agreement, i.e. health and education/vocational training but also part of it is earmarked for innovation and intervention in new sectors responding to the current needs of this young country. Most of the programme will be implemented by Lux-Development.

In the field of health, the new cooperation agreement stipulates continued support for the Health Ministry for the implementation of its 2014-2020 sector-based strategy and the reform of the health sector. With regard to vocational training, the task now is to make the two skills centres built by Luxembourg – the one in Ferizaj (paramedical branch) and the one in Prizren (tourism and commercial branch) – sustainable and to ensure that local actors can take over their management.

The Stabilisation and Association Agreement entered into force on 1 April 2016. This is the first contractual agreement linking Kosovo to the European Union and enables the country to take a decisive step with regard to its European future.

Luxembourg continues to support the activity of the Fondation Caritas Luxembourg with the most vulnerable populations in Kosovo through a local NGO, the Fondation Kosovo Luxembourg (FKL), which manages social projects in the Ferizaj region and in the north of Kosovo, especially by supporting small entrepreneurs, education and health by encouraging the community development approach.

Finally, Luxembourg is strengthening its support to civil society through funding allocated to a second local NGO, the Kosovar Civil Society Foundation (KCSF), which will mainly supply information, services and training to NGOs and other civil society actors.