Project Summary

The socio-economic shock of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on the already fragile Kosovo economy. Travel and tourism are among the most affected sectors. The collapse for the tourism sector is reflected in the fact that the tourism experienced the second biggest loss of jobs in Kosovo in 2020 and its forecast outlook is not promising.

The Government Programme 2020-2023 identifies tourism as a key strategic response to the post-pandemic economic recovery. However, the recovery during and after the pandemic is hindered by the lack of a national tourism strategy, which jeopardizes any coherent recovery interventions and coordination by all stakeholders – public, private, CSO sector and the international development community.

To address this, the project aims to bounce forward from the COVID-19 pandemic through greener recovery. This proposed intervention provides an opportunity for Kosovo to build back greener through nature-based solutions for tourism that will have a direct impact in preservation of its rich environmental and cultural heritage. Accelerating green economic recovery in Kosovo is also a significant opportunity to build upon the momentum created by an increasing public awareness on the environmental degradation in Kosovo.

The focus of the project will be on greening Kosovo’s tourism sector through public-private partnerships, coherent policy and a resilient and agile tourism strategy based on the principles of environmental, social and economic sustainability, and through a green accelerator programme for training the tourism MSMEs and implementing pilot projects in the short-term. In the medium-term, the aim is to develop the sector as a catalytic pillar in the national green economy, creating employment, improving gender equality and increasing innovative enterprise creation in tourist regions.

What we want to achieve:

·         Coherent policy framework and strategy for Sustainable Tourism are established;

·         Governance processes related to tourism sector development become more transparent and inclusive;

·         Private sector’s role, especially female entrepreneurs’ role, in tourism development is enhanced;

·         Public-private partnerships in tourism development becomes a building block for decision making

·         The enabling environment for operating tourism MSMEs is improved;

Overview