Volunteers in Action

All 26 Municipal Civil Registration Officers in Kosovo are UNVs
By Angela Griep

Pristina, November 2002 -- Most Internationals who are responsible for civil registration and the distribution of ID cards and UNMIK travel documents in Kosovo are UNVs. “Our signatures are valid in 28 countries around the world. 26 UNVs have signed about 300 000 travel documents so far”, UNV Amarnath Agraja, Municipal Civil Registration Officer (MCRO) in Skenderaj/Srbica points out proudly.

Each municipality has a Municipal Civil Registration Center where people can get registered and apply for UNMIK travel documents or ID cards. The centers are run by UNVs who monitor a local team from 7 to 12 people. Civil registration in a post-conflict situation is extremely complex since it requires the accurate collection of data as well as constant readjusting of rules and procedures to the fast changing needs of a society that is rebuilding its country. “All economical plans of development and political activity of this region depend on the database collected by MCROs and their teams”, explains UNV Mykola Tkachenko, Deputy Civil Registrar in the Central Civil Registry, the importance of the job. “The database which is made and created now might be used for different purposes, but all of them for the development of the region.”

The registration in Kosovo started in spring 2000 when a Joint Registration Task Force of UN and OSCE was built to face the problem of thousands of Kosovars who had lost all their documents during the civil war. For a few months about 400 UNVs supervised and managed registration centers all over Kosovo. They verified thousands of applications and registered about 951960 people. Today 26 Municipal Civil Registration Officers (MCROs) continue establishing a centralized civil registration system to build up a new administrational infrastructure.

Municipal Civil Registration Officer is a demanding job. Monitoring and managing a local team and dealing with a population that is impatiently and desperately waiting for their Travel Documents requires many different skills. Patience, management skills and diplomatic talent are only some of the abilities an MCRO should have.

“Recently we had a number of assaults carried out against MCROs”, explains Mykola. People were impatiently waiting for their travel documents and became violent towards the MCRO. Mykola explains this with longer waiting times due to an increase of applicants in the centers because of summer vacations and newly implemented procedures. “We can understand the people”, he says “but some processes we cannot speed up, and it can take up to 6 weeks to get a Travel Document.” Most MCROs call the police for help more than once a week. To provide better security in the registration centers now most of them have at least one policeman for protection. “People are aggressive because they need their documents. We are here to help them, so we have to handle them carefully”, sympathizes UNV Pushpa Dissanayake, MCRO in Istog/k with Kosovo’s population.

Despite similar problems each registration center faces regional differences in terms of ethnic tensions, premises and number of applicants to proceed. “A center might have two sides, one for Albanian and one for Serbian people”, explains Mykola. “Other centers are multi-ethnic.” A special challenge face MCRO’s who are responsible for more than one center, like UNV William Musoke, MCRO in Prizren and Dragash. “Driving to Dragash in winter every day is a thrilling performance”, he says “even with the snow chains.”

The Registration Center in Kamenica is special because of its multiethnic team. “My team here consists of 2 Albanians, one Serb and one Roma and at the moment we have an additional mobile team of 6 Serbs,” explains UNV Jo O’Connell, MCRO in Kamenica. “They mostly speak Serbian in the office because the majority of the Serbs doesn’t know Albanian. And they get along really, really well. All day long I hear them laughing their heads off”, she adds. The security situation of the MCRC in Kamenica is also different to other centers. “We are placed in a police station”, Jo smiles “people get angry, they are screaming and shouting, but if it is becoming too much I only have to call the commander whose office is directly above me – people know that.”

Pristina has the only Registration Center with two MCROs. It consists of two parts, the main part in town and a smaller part in the Serbian enclave Gracanica. UNV Marianne Schweigart leads the main-office, while her colleague UNV Siddarath Cheema distributes travel documents in town in the morning and monitors the office in Gracanica in the afternoon. “I think we just have all problems other centers have, but multiplied due to the many people in Pristina”, Marianne explains. Ethnic tensions seem to calm down. “We implemented periodic meetings of all the staff members, Serbian and Albanian, together which is very helpful for all of us”, Siddarath says. “And when we were really busy in Pristina in summer one of the Serbian staff members came here to help – and she didn’t have any problems, neither with her colleagues nor with the customers”, he adds.

All MCROs work on the handover to their local counterparts. Due to ever changing procedures most of them consider this a very difficult task. In the MCRC in Pristina the transfer of most responsibilities went off already. “I handed nearly everything over to the local staff”, Marianne points out. ”My new task here is mainly monitoring and controlling.” Therefore she goes through all application forms every day and discusses upcoming questions and mistakes with her team. “I would like to make a training series to deal with upcoming problems, but unfortunately there is no time for that. All I can do is to give training on the Job”, she regrets. Her local counterpart Valbona is confident regarding the handover. “The team here is very good and capable of dealing with every kind of problem”, she points out. Valbona accompanies Marianne and Siddarath to all MCRO meetings. “I think all MCROs should bring their local counterparts to these meetings– it is time”, Marianne concludes.

For more information please contact:

Angela Griep, UNV Public Information Officer, UNMIK, Email griep@un.org, or
Chrsitine Botejue-Kyle, UNV Programme Manager, UNMIK, Email botejue-kyle@un.org