OSCE Mission in Kosovo

The Mission works with the Interior Ministry, Kosovo Police and other public safety agencies to help improve overall effectiveness in combating organized crime, drug trafficking and terrorism in Kosovo. It reviews relevant legislation and advises the institutions on strategies and action plans to improve the security framework. Special emphasis is put on so-called “intelligence-led policing”, which is a concept that comprises proactive intelligence gathering, early crime detection and prevention, and risk assessment and management. The Mission also helps law enforcement agencies develop and implement strategies to protect intellectual property rights and prevent the production, distribution and sale of counterfeit goods.

The Mission runs training courses for law enforcement officials, judges and prosecutors on issues that range from the investigation of money laundering and drug trafficking to terrorist threat identification and cyber criminality, to voice analysis and the use of information technology in forensics. To ensure sustainability, the Mission also runs courses for local trainers themselves and helps establish organized crime training teams in all regional headquarters of the Kosovo Police.

The training programme is run together with the Kosovo Academy for Public Safety, which the Mission originally founded in 1999 as the Kosovo Police Service School. After 7,500 police officers of all ranks had been trained by 2006, the School was turned over to local management and subsequently enlarged to also offer courses for customs, corrections and probation services, fire fighters, emergency management units and the police inspectorate.