Jetmir Bakija is the Chief of Party of the USAID Social Contract Activity in Kosovo. He brings more than 15 years of experience supporting programs in civic engagement and local governance. Prior to joining the DI-implemented Social Contract Activity, Mr. Bakija led a large component for another USAID Kosovo program, implemented by DAI, where he was responsible for managing and advising over ten local grantees funded to monitor public procurement. He began his career in 2007 with UNDP Kosovo supporting local governance reform in Kosovo. He later moved to the National Democratic Institute (NDI) office in Kosovo leading a civil society program to monitor parliamentary procedures. Subsequently, he supported a USAID-funded program for NDI as a consultant in Nepal, Liberia, Myanmar, the Maldives and Afghanistan. Mr. Bakija led many monitoring initiatives as a civil society activist in Kosovo through local organizations and played an active role in the design, promotion and implementation of civitech platforms for crowdsourcing citizen requests for public services and platform for tracking government commitments and actions of members of parliament. He is an experienced trainer and facilitator. He has trained many CSOs in various countries in monitoring government processes, adopting information technology to engage citizens in monitoring processes, and has facilitated community dialogues on community issues in Kosovo, Liberia, and Nepal.

Mr. Bakija holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Texas A&M Commerce on Political Science and a Master of Science in International Policy and Commerce from Valparaiso University. He is fluent in English and Albanian.