In April 2021, Kosovo citizens were more optimistic than in the fall about the direction of the country. Economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccination against the virus joined longstanding concerns related to unemployment and corruption. Concerns about the safety of the vaccine were high, and belief in false Covid-19 narratives remained, just before Kosovo began its broader national vaccination campaign.
NDI cautions that opinions from this research represent a snapshot from April 2021 only.
The February 2021 snap parliamentary elections marked the beginning of a new chapter for Kosovo. For the first time since Kosovo's independence in 2008, a single political party has a majority in the Assembly. It also elected a female president for the second time and a record 43 women representatives to the 120 seat National Assembly.
In 2016 at the launch of the #NotTheCost campaign, NDI presented a list of strategies to address and prevent violence against women in politics, focusing on a wide range of potential changemakers, from the global to the grassroots levels. While a deeper understanding of the issue has emerged, new problems have arisen. The world is grappling with a global pandemic. Many countries have seen their democratic institutions severely weakened. Technological innovations have created new contexts and means of perpetrating violence against women.