Assessing Balkan security sectors

In the DECOS project, CESS undertook three research assessment missions this winter to Albania, North Macedonia and Kosovo. The aim of the missions was to present the DECOS project to different stakeholders; to assess the training and coaching needs of different interlocutors; and to discuss security sector oversight challenges with security sector actors. CESS staff met with a host of security sector oversight actors: chairs and staff of the security-related parliamentary committees, ombudsman institutes, state audit offices, anti-corruption agencies, and civil society organisations in all three countries.

Next to organising these missions, the DECOS partners organised focus group meetings about security sector reform in Albania, North Macedonia and Kosovo. The outcomes of the research assessment missions and the focus group meetings will flow into a needs assessment report, which will provide CESS and its partners with the necessary input to design tailored-made national and regional capacity-building trajectories that will be implemented over the coming years.