02 June 2022
From 30 May 2022 to 02 June 2022, a delegation from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Administrative Board for Water Management of the Dalarna Region paid a working visit to Kosovo. During this visit, in addition to meetings and field visits, several joint workshops were organized with Kosovo’s environmental institutions.
On 30 June 2022, a workshop on environmental communication was held, focusing on several aspects, including the communication planning process and important communication topics related to air pollution and national parks. During this workshop, research (case study) on environmental data was also presented under the topic: “How Do People Understand Air Pollution?”
In addition to experts from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Kosovo Environmental Protection Agency, participants in this workshop included representatives from the Kosovo Cadastral Agency, Environmental Inspectorate, Department for European Integration, Division for Public Communication, and the Human Rights and Gender Equality Unit of the Ministry of Environment, Spatial Planning and Infrastructure.
On 31 June 2022, the activities continued with three additional workshops organized according to the components of the project “Capacity Building on the Use of Environmental Data in Kosovo.”
The workshop under the Environmental Information System component focused on understanding data about data (metadata), catalogues, different types of data, and the importance of metadata. In addition to experts from the Kosovo Environmental Protection Agency and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, participants included representatives from the Kosovo Agency of Statistics, Kosovo Cadastral Agency, and other representatives from central institutions and academia.
The workshop under the water component, entitled “Capacity Building for the Sustainable Use of Water,” focused on the institutional framework and water management systems, water quality monitoring, impact assessment and classification of water status, analysis of problems, and identification of focus areas for supporting capacity development for sustainable water management in Kosovo.
The workshop under the component on Assessment of Measures for Reducing Air Emissions focused on presenting tools, measures, and policies for key sectors aimed at reducing air emissions, existing policies included in the analysis conducted by Swedish experts, as well as current and planned national policies for the transport and energy sectors.
“Capacity Building on the Use of Environmental Data in Kosovo” is a project funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and implemented by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. The objective of the project is to contribute to supporting capacity building for the Kosovo Environmental Protection Agency and the Ministry of Environment, Spatial Planning and Infrastructure in Kosovo. The thematic priorities of the project are water pollution, climate change, and air pollution. The project will prepare Kosovo to make data from thematic areas available through the Environmental Information System, in accordance with the guidance of the European Commission. It will also include support for the implementation of measures, policies, plans, and routines with the help of analytical tools, with communication integrated throughout the entire project. Gender mainstreaming will also be an integral part of the project.