United Nations Development Programme has released Public Pulse VII, a document which provides an overview of key indicators and results of a survey conducted in April with 1306 respondents. The brief provides a concise overview of key indicators and results which show a general increase in people’s satisfaction with the work of Kosovo’s key executive, legislative, and judicial institutions. Latest findings also offer people’s perceptions towards democratic and economic developments as well as security issues. The project Public Pulse is co-funded by USAID and UNDP.

Highlights

Results show a general increase in people’s satisfaction with the work of Kosovo’s key executive, legislative, and judicial institutions. – about 46% of Kosovans seem to be satisfied with  institutions.
 
Only some 21% of Kosovans seems to be either satisfied or very satisfied with Kosovo’s current political direction, while almost half of them (42.5%) seem to be either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with Kosovo’s political direction.

The percentage of citizens who perceive that the large-scale corruption is present in various institutions has decreased as compared to April 2013.

Democratization Index (1.23) has reached the highest level since November 2010. Only as compared to April 2013 the index has increased for an average of 0.36.

Another component that showed a significant increase is the belief that the media enjoys the freedom of expression. While in April 2013 only 25% of citizens believed that media enjoys freedom of expression, the 2014 survey reports this number to be 45%.

Latest findings highlight that there is more dissatisfaction with Kosovo’s economic direction than its political direction: about 62% of respondents are either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with Kosovo’s current economic direction, while only about 12% are satisfied with it.

Unemployment is perceived by 59% of Kosovans as one of the main problems that Kosovo faces.

Findings reveal a significant proportion of respondents plan to migrate from Kosovo (22%).

Only 60% of Kosovans declared that they felt safe while outdoors (as compared to 82% in April 2013), whereas only 34% (as opposed to 15% in April 2013) feel generally unsafe.

Majority of Kosovans think that dealing with the past is important. Around87% considers the need for Kosovo people to deal with finding the truth about all war crimes committed in the past, regardless of the ethnicity of victims and perpetrators.