Pristina, 6 January 2015 - The Municipal Spatial Planning Support Programme (MuSPP) Team and Partners recently celebrated a ‘Decade of Making Better Cities Together’ in Kosovo. The MuSPP is implemented by UN-Habitat and financed by the Swedish Development Cooperation (Sida). The event brought together more than 200 participants, consisting of officials and professionals from central and local levels, representing 32 municipalities in Kosovo, as well as the academia, civil society, and international partners. The Head of Reform Cooperation, Western Balkans and Turkey, Department for Europe and Latin-America from Sida, and UN-Habitat’s Headquarters Inter- Regional Advisor both attended the celebration. The event was closed with final presentation on the way forward by MuSPP and the rolling-out of MuSPP Toolbox, as a set of materials and publications based on MuSPP’s established methodologies and years of experience/ successes within the Kosovo context at local and central levels. The Toolbox aims to serve as a means for knowledge transfer and peer-learning amongst municipalities and relevant professionals and stakeholders.

Spatial planning in Kosovo and beyond

Since 2005, the Municipal Spatial Planning Support Programme (MuSPP) has been supporting twelve Kosovo municipalities in spatial planning processes as well as project design and implementation through in-house project development and local-tailored methodologies and tools. The programme is also operating in close cooperation with the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning (MESP), as a key partner at the central level, through support on policy and planning law and further inter-institutional dialogue and coordination with municipalities. MuSPP has introduced a completely new approach to the process of democratic governance that can be shared with the Balkan region and beyond. The overall objective of the programme is to build capacity and institutional structures for improved and inclusive municipal and urban development planning, taking into account the needs of both men and women, and resulting in strategic plans, which give direction to rational public and private investments and sustainable municipal and urban development. Activities to date have resulted in the in-house drafting of 12 plans and 25 strategic capital investment projects, derived from the plans and implemented with local people involvement; as well as a sector support (environment, disaster risk assessment and management, housing) integrated in planning documents and processes.