Norwegian - Kosovo dialogue
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Implementing Kosovo’s Digital Diplomacy Strategy

This project has been developed to support the implementation of Kosovo’s Digital Diplomacy Strategy. The original Digital Diplomacy Strategy was written by a British diplomat and expert who had been seconded to the Kosovo Ministry of Foreign Affairs in May/June 2012. It was adopted by the Kosovo government as its national strategy in July 2012, and has provided the framework for implementation of various initiatives. 

A number of innovative projects have been implemented as a result, with partners including the British Council, Norwegian Embassy, IPKO Foundation, and Kosovo Association of Information and Communication Technology (STIKK). Successful initiatives include the App Camp and Wiki Academy projects, designed to train digitally savvy youngsters in Kosovo to produce and edit Wikipedia content about Kosovo. By the end of 2012, the Turkish publication ‘Yeni Diplomacy’ had declared that Kosovo’s Digital Diplomacy Strategy was the best in the Balkans and one of the best in the world. 

Progress to date was evaluated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a Digital Diplomacy Retreat, bringing together key delivery partners in late August 2013. This resulted in a refresh of the strategy, and a renewed focus on delivering further activities in support of the wider objective of securing Kosovo’s recognition by the global internet infrastructure. 

To help support this in the interim, the Digital Kosovo portal was launched in September 2013 to help Kosovo citizens themselves to lobby for Kosovo to be included on the drop-down menus of the major global websites. Going forward, the Kosovo Digital Diplomacy Strategy seeks to continue to be supported by initiatives that would enable a higher online presence of quality multimedia content, thereby improving Kosovo’s reputation online and demonstrating that Kosovo overall is a digitally switched-on country.

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