Kosovo - Systematic Country Diagnostic Update

This Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) examines the current constraints and policy priorities for Kosovo to achieve the Twin Goals of eradicating poverty and accelerating shared prosperity. This report follows on the first SCD, completed in 2017, which highlighted fiscal policy, competitiveness, inclusion, and environmental sustainability as priorities for sustainable poverty reduction and shared prosperity. Today, many challenges identified in the 2017 SCD continue to hamper Kosovo’s progress and several structural weaknesses could worsen due to the pandemic, climate change, and the energy transition. In this sense, this SCD is conducted as an “update,” as it largely maintains the conceptual framework in the previous SCD, describes how the structural conditions identified in it have evolved, and proposes a revised set of development priorities for the next five years. Today, many challenges identified in the 2017 SCD continue to hamper Kosovo’s progress and several structural weaknesses could worsen due to the pandemic, climate change, and the energy transition. In this sense, this SCD is conducted as an “update,” as it largely maintains the conceptual framework in the previous SCD, describes how the structural conditions identified in it have evolved, and proposes a revised set of development priorities for the next five years.