A European Union-hosted donors' conference for Kosovo collected some 1.2 billion euros to start turning Kosovo from an aid-dependent protectorate to a viable economy. The USA, throwing in some 400 m$, and Germany with 100 m€ are the biggest donors at country level so it is fair that taxpayers should find out a little bit where the money goes and the people in Kosovo too have the right to know what to expect.

Here are some remarks based to my own experiences in Kosovo:

Long travel from conference to field:

• Donors´conference ends to promise to give some sum of money to Kosovo. If this promise will be kept or not we shall see, anyway in many similar conferences the implemented figures have been more or less short of original ones.
• When some sum of donor money actually will be paid from donor so in most cases the donating country takes some percentage for donors own administrative costs before sending rest to management authority.
• When management authority (receiving country, outside agency, consultant ...) gets the charges deducted sum, they are taking off their administrative costs.
• Depending about programme practice there can also be some middlemen with their administrative costs.
• The rest part of donor money is near for the beneficiary; how much money goes all the way depends local practice, price fixing and needs by local interest groups.

Money goes, report arrives

There is a big gap between original donors´ideas and real effects of their donation on the field. EU has ginven some 800 m€ during years 1999-2007 to Kosovo power plant. People in Kosovo still suffer power cuts. Like before despite an army of different international management groups, projects, training, investments and reports.

Earlier some donors gave money for a new school in a Kosovo village. The school was ready, a nice photo was taken for the media, tendering was made with standards, audit did not find anything special. So perfect project to satisfy donor? Small detail - there was no pupils for the new school. Similar examples are bridges, roads and swimming pools in middle of nowhere.

The lesson learned is that perfect report does not mean that positive development has happened on the field. Reports are describing how money is spent. More effective is to concentrate on the challenge of what to do with donations.

Money is only one of means - one part of resources. more important parts are vision, objective, strategy, implementation, feed back and commitment of beneficiary.

Some improvement

Some improvement can be made applying Logical Framework Approach through the process. Special need at local level is also for Participatory Planning methods so that all stakeholders can commit to actions. These two practice do not remove problems but they can make the impact of donor money more desired at destination.

I doubt that Serbia was invited to the donors´conference. However Serbia is one of the biggest donors in Kosovo distributing their aid mainly Serb populated areas. In this case there is a good possibility to integrate aid to national and local programmes. In the case of the donors conference, the challenge is much bigger, first because of the diversity of donors and second because of the huge chaos in Kosovo's administration. The bottom line is anyway to know how to use resources whatever money is arriving on the field.

Ari Rusila is a development project management expert from Finland with a special interest in the Balkan region.