Bringing NGOs together to act more decisively and effectively in their work and mission constitutes one of the weaker parts of the civil society story in post-1999 Kosovo. There were few NGO networks established in this period, and most of those were either short-lived or ineffective in mobilizing the NGO potential and creating powerful synergies. The factors contributing to this situation vary from frequent internal disagreements between member organizations to the diversity of interests represented within the same network.

Nevertheless the cooperation among NGOs, both on a bilateral and multilateral level, has begun to increase and many NGOs are implementing projects in partnership with each other, particularly in advocacy and watchdog projects, achieving far better results. Such cooperation has also helped NGOs to increase their own capacity and sustainability.

 “Democracy in Action”, a network of tens of NGOs, was established to monitor the election process in February 2007, and continued to do the same also on 2009 local elections in Kosovo.

The CiviKos Platform was initiated by civil society and encouraged by the government in order to represent the sector in a structured dialogue and formal cooperation with the government. In its first stages, the platform involved many NGOs and approved a number of internal acts, including the Code of Ethics, which was obligatory for all of its members. Within this process, a participatory process involving around 130 NGOs and government officials resulted with a frame-work document for cooperation between two sectors, which was later signed as a Memorandum of Understanding between civil society and government. Besides being officially recognized from the government as representative of civil society interests, after the signature of this document, CiviKos Platform became alive only occasionally. This happened mostly regarding the NGO Law drafting process, and CiviKos never played its role to push for implementation of the signed Memorandum. Recently, the dynamic developments in the society in general and the role of CSOs in these developments are resulting with an increased need for a formal cooperation with the government. In this situation, initiatives from CSOs to re-functionalize the platform (or establish a new one) and continue the mission of CiviKos might come very soon.

In sectorial side, a number of networks were active during the years, with the Kosovo Woman Network being as one of the largest and the most active ones. Kosovo Youth Council was active and functional until beginning of 2010, when the Law on Youth Empowerment implies creation of the National Youth Action Council, which will gather and represent all youth NGOs in Kosovo. In addition, in 2009, the Serb NGOs active in Kosovo established their network, which aims to represent their interest towards the third parties.

Non-formally, other coalitions become active from time to time and their operation is usually related to certain issues or developments, as it was the case with recent initiative from a number of CSOs to express their concerns over the rule of law situation in Kosovo and ask from all actors to play their role in this field.