Inaugural Forum for Cities in Transition Held
The city of Kosovska Mitrovica / Mitrovicë, Kosovo hosted the first annual Forum for Cities in Transition on May 24-28, 2010, bringing together ten cities from around the world, which are dealing with divisions from the aftermath of conflict: Beirut (Lebanon), Belfast (Northern Ireland), Derry / Londonderry (Northern Ireland), Haifa (Israel), Jerusalem (Israel), Kaduna (Nigeria), Kirkuk (Iraq), Mostar (Bosnia and Hercegovina), Nicosia (Cyprus / Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus), and Kosovska Mitrovica / Mitrovicë (Kosovo). Representatives of civil society, media, businessmen, mayors, police chiefs, and councilors focused on how to come together to deliver services and improve the daily lives of citizens while putting political differences aside. Participants shared their experience and discussed topics from maintaining infrastructure in transitional times to maintaining cohesion with community based policing. They also made many local site visits in order to see specific solutions to the local problems of Kosovska Mitrovica / Mitrovicë. The Balkan Trust for Democracy supported this initiative in addition to the Kosovo Foundation for an Open Society, UNDP Kosovo, the Swedish Embassy of Kosovo (through Cultural Heritage without Borders), OPIC, Mitrovica Municipality, Kaduna Municipality, Kosovar Civil Society Foundation, Ministry of Local Government Administration, and IKV PaxChristi. The Forum for Cities in Transition comes out of a collaboration between the University of Massachusetts, Boston and the Mitrovica Forum, the organizing committee of the event, with its key NGO partners, the Center for Civil Society Development and Community Building Mitrovica.