PRISTINA (Serbia and Montenegro), June 16 (SeeNews) - The World Bank said on Thursday it has approved two projects worth a total of $12.5 million (10.3 million euro) to help improve business environment and effective use of public resources in the U.N.-run southern Serbian province of Kosovo.
The World Bank's board has approved a $7.0 million project aimed to improve the business environment in the province by increasing transparency and accountability of implementing institutions, the bank said on its website.
The second project, worth $5.5 million, is designed to strengthen public expenditure management in Kosovo by improving ability to use public resources more efficiently and transparently.
Kosovo, population two million, is legally part of the loose union of Serbia and Montenegro that replaced rump Yugoslavia two years ago. The province has been under U.N. administration after NATO bombed Serbia in 1999 to halt Serb repression of the ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo.
The World Bank has granted over $80 million to the province since the end of the 1998-99 conflict.
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6 comments:
True true. And by the time you subtract 10-20% in bribes hell you get less then that per citizen. But hey with the summer so close Rugova, Thaqi, Kraniqi, Rambush, and others need swimming pools soon.
That's the story everywhere where there is need for financial aid.
But if that money is spent on one specific thing, i.e. building wind farm for Dukagjini, or renewing the hospital in Prishtina and another city in Dukagjin, the money might become of some use?
Guessing here...
Wind farm? :) The approach is right, nervertheless. You have to start with the economic and politicla infrastructure. Immediately after that I would choose DSL internet offering for all of Kosova's cities supported by a fiber ring.
Living in Kosovo. the 12.5 would be better spent improving the power grid. The village of 300 people that I live is experiencing power restrictions 3 or 4 times a day.
If electricity can't be porvided to everyday citizens how in the heck can electricity be provided to the businesses that will coming into Kosovo after it gets it's independence?
The education system could use some work too. Who wants to invest in a country whose adverage citizen has an 8th grade education?
Broadband infastructure.....get a grip on reality.
The thing about broadband is it is quite possible to implement in Prishtina, but of course this is not something that is built out of aid money, its pure luxury.
But the above poster is right, electricity is the biggest problem.
Mr. Blaku and others,
I am aware that electricity comes before DSL. I have lived myself through three years of black-outs. There is electricity all around, we just need people to pay it like they do any good or service.
My point was that Kosova must find its niche and sacrifice in other fields in order to create the environment for the furhter development of that niche. Electricity is very important, but you cant' stop with that nor hope that investors will flock to you once you have electricity.
Also, it is clear that you have the essentials of economics, which is a good first step. But how can you attract industry if wages are higher than in the neighboring countries and people will rather stay unemployed than work for comparable balkan-level wages? Heck, we dont'/can't produce even our own food. Kosova is full of anomalies and we must come with genuine ideas to find ourselves in the pan-European market.
My claim is that Kosova should emulate India in software engineering, call centers and similar services. Start-up costs are low, people are young although you have to work with them a lot, and knowledge of European languages is widespread.
P.S.1 Wind farms are heavily subsidized and Kosova doesn't even have the winds for them. Rather, how about tomato and grain farms? I guess you have to sell your soul to the devil (i.e. Russians) when electricity is concernced, since people don't want to pay for it.
P.S.2 It is clear that you haven't been living in Kosova recently. The party that openly favored unification with Albania, LKCK, got about 5,000 votes in the last elections. I doubt such parties would achieve even half of that in Albania.
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