INTERVIEW WITH VLORA TUZI NUSHI
Head of Office at UN Women Kosovo
Journey at the United Nations
I am a pharmacist by training. I started with UN women in 2004. As youngsters, were trying to navigate all the challenges we have been facing. I never went back to my pharmacy because I fell in love with the work I was doing. It is inspiring to see the results of our work first hand, especially implementing programs dealing with advancement of women’s position through the
Women Peace and Security (WPS) agenda.
There are programs dealing with the gender sensitive transitional justice where we were able to not just support the government and establishment of mechanisms to recognize the status of survivors but worth also support directly the survivors and then of course we are working on women economic empowerment.
The other part of the work I really love is Advocacy. I worked with different groups from the most marginalized, from women with disabilities and young girls working with academia which is for me very inspiring. All of this has made me really love the job that I took currently. I am serving temporarily for four months in UN Women regional office for Arab states, and my assignment focuses on Syria (Women Peace and Security in Syria).
Kosovo’s social and political landscape and the role of UN Women
The landscape of western Balkans; the social and political landscape of western Balkans is shaped by its complex history, diverse cultures, languages and ongoing process of transitional development and this region particularly has faced significant challenges. It still carries the legacy of conflict but at the same time there are a lot of efforts to build an equal society and democratic institutions.
We continue to face traditional patriarchal stereotypes but I would like to state the progress that has been made for in Kosovo for which I am a witness. For example, the legal framework of Kosovo. currently is one of the most advanced in the region when it comes to gender equality. For example, with the requirement of 50% women in all positions is not fully applied, but is we are gradually moving to our desired goal. The voters have voted more than 38% of women in the parliament, meaning that it is a gradual process. We have for the second time a woman President and two women deputy Prime Ministers.
We have progressed in the inclusion of the international legal frameworks, for instance, we have the Istanbul convention as part of the Kosovo constitution. Kosovo is the youngest population in Europe where half of population is under 30, which for us represents a unique opportunity to invest in young women’s empowerment.
We are doing a lot of work in STEM to empower women and are working closely with the Ministry of Education. We have managed to shift the mindset that considered STEM fields as a male-centric domain. We do hope that there is only going to be a positive change although it is gradual, it is there it is visible. We must take into consideration that in 1999 everything was destroyed and to see this progress is very encouraging.
The Impact of the Past on Present Situation
Speaking from the UN women’s perspective we are implementing more programs to heal the past wounds. Our initiatives supporting the transitional justice process where we also acknowledge the past and ensure justice for survivors. For trust building, we are working with young generation, helping them address these issues. At UN Women, we have prioritized supporting survivors including those of conflict related sexual violence and of course working with policy makers.
For instance, the Commission for Verification and Recognition of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence Victim Status was established in 2018 where they began providing reparations to survivors and then just to give you an example we were supporting the survivors with the economic empowerment programs. We had this pilot program support more than 200 women across Kosovo to open their small businesses. The first group applied for reparations through the Commission which also meant a lot for them because they were able to justify the income but at the same time, they used their income to expand their small businesses. The organizations helped them to establish a network of women entrepreneurs who were previously survivors who have grown so much and we are so proud. Now we have more than 2100 applications received by the Commission. Kosovo is also unique place where women receive pension like lifetime pension whereas in other countries they receive like once a sum a total amount.
Kosovo has strong gender mainstreaming policies and objectives on supporting female survivors of sexual violence. We have this facility to receive funds from the UN Peace Building Fund and we really work directly with the young groups from different communities bringing them together through arts, through sports, through different activities because we believe that they are the drivers of change. We are trying our best to shift this landscape from a post-conflict zone towards development and trust-building.
Enforcement gaps and steps taken to bridge them
Through our normative mandate we work closely with institutions of Kosovo. Kosovo is unique in western Balkans because the agency for gender equality is dealt directly at the Prime Minister’s level. For us, it is easy to push this agenda.
I must also highlight the progress in ensuring that the legal framework is aligned with Istanbul convention, then the adoption of the protocol for the Treatment of Sexual Violence which is the first time that was drafted that was approved in Kosovo. We work not just with the agency but Ministry of Justice so when it comes to implementation, of course this is where we work now through the gender responsive budgeting with the government because implementation requires resources. We are working with oversight mechanisms. To give an example of this, we have supported the Ministry of Justice to develop the legal framework, the national action plan for gender based violence and we are working with the Ministry of Finance to ensure that using the gender responsive budgeting they allocate budget allocated for women-related strategies. And at the same time, we are working with the national audits office to do this performance audit
At the UN Women, we have two groups to coordinate with all our partners. It is through the security and gender group, this is a group of more than eighty members where we meet on a bimonthly basis with all partners and where we exchange ideas.
There is another like internal UNCT working coordination group called gender theme group. This is only comprised of the UN agencies and it is chaired by UN women. We have our own work plan, we have our own coordination meetings. This is mainly because of the role that UN women has through its triple mandate to ensure that gender is mainstreamed across development assistance and at the same time according to data from the Kosovo agency of statistics only around 20% of women in Kosovo participate in the labor force.
Challenge of low labour force participation among women t
Recent data shows that approximately 6.2 hours of women are spent on unpaid care work. This is because in Kosovo we still don’t have windows like care centers for elderly and sick people as well as enough public childcare facilities to monetise this work.
Women have to give up on their ambitions and opportunities of engaging in labor market. As UN women we provide our inputs through the legal framework to the labor law and track the obstacles that women face. Besides the policy part, we are engaging quite heavily with the private sector because we see there are great opportunity there. One of the key initiative initiatives that I would like to highlight is an online platform Women Empowerment Principles (WEPs) established by UN Women and UN Global Compact where you find more than 10,000 companies attracting attention of private sector to be part of women’s empowerment and work towards capacity building.
We are bringing this down to Kosovo and current; for example, we managed to have more than 20 companies on board, which is a big achievement and now we are having more and more interest of other companies who are interested. I want to share about their latest campaign that we had with one of the biggest chain of supermarkets in Kosovo where we invited young women wherein they actually asked for help to access women in rural areas to join jobs with working hours. These were the women who had their husbands killed during the war or who have missing persons in their families or who are not able to pursue their career in education because of conflict. Through the private. these women can be part of the labor market. Message to the Young Graduates and Researchers who wish to work for International Organizations.
For me, working in international organizations is much more than a job. It is a commitment; it is helping to create a better world for everyone. Of course, one person cannot make so for me, it is very important to stay consistent, to be open to new opportunities and really to be curious to learn. I am learning now so much, let’s say on Artificial Intelligence (AI), so this the world makes you curious to learn more.