Main area: Migration
Theme: Engagement with diaspora
Assessment: Non ODA-eligible
Provider country: Switzerland
Recipient country: Kosovo
Implementing agency: Albinfo.ch
Budget (CHF million): 0.1
Year(s): 2020-2021
Purpose code: 15190
Case number: Migration / 24
Take a chance in Kosovo
Switzerland concluded a migration partnership with Kosovo in 2010. In this framework, Switzerland decided to support a series of video portraits made by albinfo.ch interviewing twelve people from the diaspora who had invested in Kosovo and eight people who had left or had had to leave Kosovo and had subsequently returned to Kosovo and successfully built something there. The project is financed and monitored by the State Secretariat for Migration and not from the Swiss international co-operation budget lines.
This project is intended to provide a new perspective on socio-economic opportunities in Kosovo, and to challenge the widespread belief in Kosovo that a good life is only possible abroad. It is in the interest of the State Secretariat for Migration to show potential opportunities on the ground in Kosovo as an alternative to irregular migration.
The output of the project is four video portraits of people who have been successful in Kosovo without ever emigrating. Each portrait is 10-12 minutes long, in Albanian with subtitles in German and French. The videos are intended to be thought provoking and to challenge the common belief that one can only live a good life outside one's own country. Albinfo.ch aims to create a new perspective on Kosovo's socio-economic potential.
In total, three series of several video portraits will have been filmed by albinfo.ch. As a conclusion, an event in Kosovo is planned to launch a broad discussion on the various opportunities in Kosovo. Through partnerships with civil society in different regions, the discussion will also take place outside the cities and the videos will be shown in local cinemas and schools. These various activities in Kosovo, combined with the publication of the videos on albinfo.ch and on the corresponding Facebook page with 140 000 subscribers, will achieve a good level of awareness.
After the recording of the video portraits, the implementing partner will carry out a series of outreach activities in Kosovo to reach a wider audience:
Show the portraits in schools and local cinemas throughout Kosovo;
Workshop with journalists from Switzerland and Kosovo to discuss amongst others questions on how media influences the decision of young people to leave Kosovo or to stay in the country;
Panel discussion with youth representatives in which the participants will debate about questions on how the youth sees its future in the country and what it considers as crucial to stay in Kosovo instead of leaving;
Event with entrepreneurs from Switzerland and Kosovo with the aim to develop joint project ideas.
This activity is deemed non ODA-eligible. With an objective to disincentivise migration, the activity is assessed to first and foremost respond to the provider’s domestic migration interest, not to Kosovo and prospective migrants. It thus does not comply with the requirements for ODA eligibility stipulated under Principle 3 (clear rationale for ODA eligibility) and Criterion 8.
This work was approved and declassified by the Development Assistance Committee’s Working Party on Development Finance Statistics.
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