CLA for Behavior Change in Public Participation in Kosovo

In 2021, the USAID/Kosovo Social Contract Activity embarked on a five-year project to explore sustainable practices for public participation to improve Kosovo citizens' quality of life and strengthen their partnership with their municipal government. During the first year and a half of the project, the Activity partnered with five municipalities, conducted multifaceted assessments to identify specific barriers and facilitators to public participation in each municipality, and worked with municipal officials and citizens to create municipal-specific action plans called "Social Contract Agendas". The Activity will continue to work with the municipalities and their citizens in the coming months to successfully implement the mutual goals within their respective Social Contract Agenda. Throughout this process the development challenge/opportunity is to create sustainable behavioral change with the partner municipalities. To help achieve this challenge/opportunity, the Activity used CLA tools including pause and reflect sessions and adaptive management to allow for real time learning and improvements to the Social Contract Activity process. In particular, the team would use pause and reflect sessions and after-action reviews following each activity with the municipalities and their citizens to identify programmatic pivots or additions. These changes have resulted in increased buy-in from both parties and the Activity has seen evidence of preliminary behavioral change, including the replication of the Social Contract Agenda process in participatory budgeting by all municipalities (allowing direct citizen input in local decision making), municipalities working with citizens to resolve community issues, and increased citizen participation in innovative ways of budget planning.