Going home to Kosovo

1
Going home to Kosovo?

• Studying impact of information dissemination
  activities of DRC/SCG.
• Henrik Nielsen Mirjana Dimitrijevic
• Dubrovnik, April 2005

2
Impact Monitoring within DRC.

• New focus area within DRC
• Unit established in Belgrade office, to function
  within all Balkan programmes
• Financed by different projects running

3
Why impact monitoring?

• We dont know where we are going
• Shift from hard to soft
• Competition among programme implementors is
  fierce
• Trad. evaluations have proven of limited use

4
Why impact monitoring? (2)

• Can provide better understanding of dynamisms
  involved in programme
• Can set programme in proper political context
• Can provide on-going corrective measures
• Is not necessarily more expensive than external
  consultants

5
The assignment

• To assess to what degree our initiatives to
  provide information to Serbian IDPs from Kosovo
  has helped them to make informed choices whether
  to stay in Serbia or attempt return.

6
What does DRC do?

• Run Information offices
• Arrange Go-and-See visits
• Arrange Go-and Inform visits
• Support institutional setup (MWGs)

7
Donor policy

• Rights-based approach
• Return based approach
• Seriously underfunded
• Low degree of legitimacy
• Using meeting standards as carrot

8
Reality of return

• Extremely intransigent environment
• Security and freedom of movement a severe problem
• Very meager prospects of achieving sustainable
  livelihood.
• Very costly process.

9
Reasons for return

• Serbian government does little to facilitate
  integration
• Serbs are on a political mission
• They have few other options

10
Interesting findings from study

• IDPs mix up the different donors (e.g. DRC, EU,
  UNMIK)
• They have faith in their Serbian leaders (i.e.
  are hardcore hardliners most of them)
• They have not understood the institutional setup
  in Kosovo.
• They think that DRC has more resources than we
  have.

11
Findings

• Attention should be focused on the election of
  village representatives
• Village representatives political maneuvering is
  very important
• DRC staff generally performing well, but need to
  be more precise in their information

12
Implications

• We have to accept that our activities are a tiny
  element in a Kosovo policy with little chance of
  succeeding
• The discrepancy between objectives, results and
  means may lead to cynicism
• Notions like sustainability make little sense

13
Researcher/Practitioner

• Making dialogue-based inquiry has proved
  feasible within existing model.
• Needs back-up from DRC management
• Nice to be away from self indulgent, ever nagging
  research environment producing paper without any
  consideration of relevance, but only for personal
  merit.

14
Frustrations

• They think we are magicians
• The impossibility of indicators
• Struggling with LFA
• The resurgence of impact studies as new panacea

15
Challenges

• Obsession with indicators within normative
  programmes constitute insurmountable problems
• LFA-approaches provide little space for
  constructivist approaches
• Little experience so far in sharing with
  colleagues, ensuring feed-back within DRC.
• Havent tried to look into ill-functioning
  activities.