Civil society organizations in the Serb community in Kosovo: Between perceptions and presentation

The number of civil society organizations is in-creasing every year but their presence continues to dominate in Pristina, Mitrovica and Prizren. By 2018, 9,016 local and 530 foreign and international non-governmental organizations were registered with the competent Ministry. Out of that number, 96 % are registered as associations, whereas only 4 % are registered as foundations. One should also bear in mind that numerous associations, civil initiatives, clubs and religious groups are conduct-ing activities informally without a legal status and financial capacities. On the other hand, according to a study conducted by the Kosovo Civil-Society Foundation (KCSF), only a small part of registered organizations, approximately 1,000, are active both in terms of programs and financially.1 However, the official public data on civil society organizations are not comprehensive, i. e. they do not comprise all necessary statistical information, do not follow trends and do not give detailed information on active organizations, their capacities, fields of ac-tivities and finance, among other things.