USAID Transparent, Effective and Accountable Municipalities (USAID TEAM) Activity in Kosovo Year 3 Annual Work Plan

The project aims to improve procurement fairness, transparency, and oversight by providing comprehensive assistance across Kosovo's 38 municipalities to improve accountability for public procurement. Component I of the project focuses on developing, refining, and rolling out models for transparent and accountable municipalities. This component works with all 38 municipalities to champion anti-corruption reforms, particularly around procurement. Component I supports increasing capacities of municipal procurement managers on the procurement cycle through tailored training, coaching, and mentoring. The project also disseminates manuals, templates, guides, and processes generated in the five focus municipalities to a grouping of second-tier municipalities and then on to all Kosovo municipalities. Component II of the project engages the central level in addressing municipal corruption within the procurement process. This component supports increasing the capacity of central-level institutions to target municipal corruption by strengthening coordination mechanisms between the central government and the municipal internal audit units (IAUs) to detect and address procurement weaknesses. The project also increases the capacities of the Public Procurement Regulatory Commission (PPRC), especially its Information Technology (IT) team, to ensure proper operation of the e-procurement platform and develop training guidelines. Component III of the project enables civil society to track and expose corruption. This component is focused on monitoring corruption at the municipal level by empowering and supporting national-level civil society organizations (CSOs) to train local-level CSOs specifically on procurement monitoring. The project provides subcontracts and grants to CSOs to monitor municipalities in areas such as procurement and recruitment, while ensuring greater citizen engagement. The project adheres to cross-cutting principles such as finding local solutions in subcontracts with Kosovar organizations, ensuring flexible training and coaching approaches, and coordinating with various national-level actors, including the Public Procurement Regulatory Commission (PPRC), National Audit Office (NAO), Ministry of Finance (MOF), and Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA). The project contributes to the Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) Development Objective 1: Improved Rule of Law and Governance that Meet Citizens' Needs, specifically Intermediate Results (IRs) IR1.2 and IR1.4. The project's activities are organized around three main components and a support fund. Component I supports increasing capacities of municipal procurement managers on the procurement cycle. Component II supports increasing the capacity of central-level institutions to target municipal corruption. Component III enables civil society to track and expose corruption. The Support Fund benefits partner municipalities and local organizations, such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and think tanks, to implement activities within the component areas. The project's expected results for Year 3 include strengthening the effectiveness and accountability of assemblies, administrations, and election processes, and strengthening civil society to increasingly engage constructively with government. The project's activities are designed to improve procurement fairness, transparency, and oversight, and to increase the capacities of municipal procurement managers, central-level institutions, and civil society organizations to address municipal corruption.