Introduction: In and Out of Kosovo

In January 1999, 11 NGOs working in Kosovo decided to form the International NGO Council of Kosovo (INGO Council), primarily for advocacy purposes. During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia from March-June 1999, nearly all of the few NGOs working in Kosovo moved their operations to the Former Yugoslav Republic Of Macedonia (FYROM), joined by new organisations arriving in FYROM and Albania to deal with mass refugee movements out of Kosovo.

In FYROM the original Council members continued to meet but struggled to deal with the rapidlychanging situation.

This report covers the period 01/01/08 to 31/12/08.

In brief

Programme purpose: The focus areas, aiming to alleviate suffering among the most vulnerable, were aligned with Strategy 2010 and the Istanbul Commitments made at the VII European Red Cross Red Crescent Conference, and contributed to the four Global Agenda Goals focusing on disaster management, health and care, organizational development and participatory community development as well as population movement.

Programme(s) summary: Within disaster management, supported by the International Federation the National Societies

OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting
Warsaw, October 2003
Foreword

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is pleased to be able to present, for the second time, a comprehensive overview of the situation of internally displaced persons in the OSCE region to the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting. The report was compiled by the NRC's Geneva-based Global IDP Project, the leading international body monitoring IDP situations worldwide, in cooperation with NRC field offices.

This overview clearly shows that internal

PRESS RELEASE
EU Crisis Response - 11 September and the Laeken Summit

Brussels, 29 April 2002: A new briefing paper, EU Crisis Response Capabilities: An Update, finds that the EU has made progress in developing crisis management competence since ICG's initial study ten months ago.* However, its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) still punches below its weight because member states have not yet mastered the art of speaking with a single voice and given adequate resources to their fledgling European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP).

The ICRC worldwide 2000 Geneva (ICRC) - The increasing number of armed conflicts throughout the world, the unprecedented scale of the challenges facing humanitarian endeavour, the need to stay close to the victims, the imperative of staff safety - these are the major themes that were addressed today by Jean-Daniel Tauxe, Director of Operations of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), when he presented the organization's 2000 Annual Report in Nairobi. It was the first time in ICRC history that the report had been launched outside Switzerland.

From VOICE Newsletter Issue 5 - September 2000
focus:Balkans news from the field

After the return of 700,000 Kosovars to Albania and Macedonia in the summer of 1999, international humanitarian agencies determined that the highest priority was to address the shelter needs of those whose homes had been damaged (roughly eighty thousand structures) in the conflict of the previous months. One year and thousands of home repairs later, the relief effort seems to have succeeded: there was no excess mortality in the last year due to exposure to rain or cold.

MEMO/00/12
Brussels, 8 March 2000

On 24 March, it will be a year since NATO responded with force to Slobodan Milosevic's growing repression of the Kosovo Albanian community.

On 10 June 1999, Kosovo came under UN administration and the UN Mission in Kosovo known as UNMIK was set up under UN Security Council Resolution 1244.

The European Union both its Member States and the European Commission is playing a prominent role in the reconstruction of Kosovo.