Social Contract Activity in Kosovo

USAID’s Social Contract Activity, implemented by Democracy International and Development Professionals, Inc., is a multiyear activity that aims to introduce sustainable practices for public participation in order to improve Kosovo citizens’ quality of life and strengthen their partnership with the municipal government. To do this, the Social Contract Activity includes two primary objectives:

• Assess the key barriers and facilitators that affect public participation in municipalities. The Social Contract Activity will work with targeted municipalities and community stakeholders to co-develop, test, and evaluate public participation action plans.

• Apply successful participation practices and scale up implementation efforts to more municipalities. The Social Contract Activity will support local governments and community stakeholders in carrying out implementation and sustaining the public participation practices.

To ensure that the interventions are valuable, effective, and feasible to municipalities and community stakeholders, DI is integrating Social and Behavioral Science (SBS) insights to 1) assess the trust between community stakeholders and local governments; 2) increase trust in local governments by managing citizen expectations; and 3) push municipalities to provide services and information in a way that exhibits competence, benevolence, and honesty, three key pillars of trust.

Photo by Adam Jones is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Retrieved from creativecommons.org.