Kosovo Case Study: Lessons Learned in Community Mobilization

Mercy Corps defines community mobilization as the process of engaging communities to identify their priorities, needs, resources, and solutions in order to promote participation, accountability, and peaceful change.

With these goals in mind, Mercy Corps implemented a sixteen month USAID-funded Healthy Communities Initiative in Kosovo.

The program used public health training for women as an entry point into the community followed by subsequent infrastructure projects that were community-identified and community-driven with significant local contributions.

This report complements the East Georgia field study report by identifying stages of empowerment and citing the commonalities between effectively mobilized communities. It outlines particular lessons learned, ranging from the need for leadership training to the key contributions women made towards project success rates.