MAPPING THE PRIVATE SECURITY SECTOR LANDSCAPE IN SOUTH EASTERN EUROPE

KCSS senior researcher Mentor Vrajolli and researcher Donika Emini attended the fourth workshop in the framework of the project entitled “Mapping the Private Security Sector Landscape in South Eastern Europe” funded by Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), led by Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF). This project brings together researchers from DCAF and four partner organizations in the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe to develop research outputs on private security company (PSC) regulation in Albania, Bulgaria, Kosovo and Serbia. Other organizations included in the project are Belgrade Center for Security Policy (BCSP), Institute for Democracy and Mediation (IDM) and Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD).

Project partners gathered in Belgrade to discuss the project development, common challenges in proceeding with the delivery of the second output, solutions to overcome these challenges. In addition the team has discussed the outline of the third product in the framework of this project. The group identified possible incidents that could be further explored in the case studies, and decided to further expand the case studies reflecting the challenges and risk of the private security sector in all four counties.

An integral part of this workshop was the discussions on the outreach strategy for this project. Participants are provided with concrete ideas on the most successful outreach in national level. This session was followed by discussions and working groups aiming to identify target groups for the dissemination of the findings. Then, identify the most appropriate strategies to reach out to these different target audiences.

The research team continued participation in the Belgrade Security Forum; moreover the first publication of this project was launched at the Belgrade Security Forum – the panel on privatization of the security sector.