On March 24, 1999, after two years of low-intensive guerilla warfare between the Kosovo Liberation Army and Serbian police and military, NATO began a bombing campaign throughout Serbia that would achieve its military objectives in 78 days. In the aftermath of the war, both the physical infrastructure and emotional state of Kosovo (and greater Serbia) were deeply fractured. As the bombing ended in the summer of 1999, the international community responded quickly with assistance from an overwhelming cadre of non-governmental and international non-governmental organizations, in an effort to quickly heal the deep wounds inflicted on this tiny corner of southeastern Europe.
With UN Security Council Resolution 1244 (June 10, 1999), the brief war was legally concluded, and the United Nations took over as the de facto administrator to the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. NATO member states divided the province into five multi-national brigade areas (MNBs); NATO troops assigned to Kosovo (Kosovo Force, known commonly as KFOR) secured borders and facilitated the inception of the new United Nations-led administration. Every aspect of governmental responsibility that had previously fallen on the Yugoslav authorities now required oversight, and in many cases, total overhaul, by the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). This was not a simple transfer of authority, though, as the province had just endured a harrowing roller coaster of years of ethnic division, propaganda, and both guerrilla and high-technology warfare.
Thousands of people, from all sides of the conflict, had been killed, while thousands more were still missing; the long-standing ethnic divisions between Albanians, Serbs, Roma, and other ethnic populations had culminated with a violent multi-national response, only reinforcing the most brutish tendencies of their provincial quarrel. Former underdogs, the Albanian-led Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had been crowned victorious by their association with NATO; consequently Serbs and other minority populations suffered their own round of expulsion and killing, this time under the watch of KFOR.
Bridges and roads were heavily damaged during the air war, requiring many hours of detours to travel short distances. Power grids and transmitters, seen as strategic military targets, were so heavily damaged that it would be years before the electric supply in Kosovo would achieve normalcy. Possibly the greatest physical damage was inflicted on homes of Kosovar Albanians, with estimates of over 100,000 houses damaged or destroyed (International Management Group, 1999).
Despite this great destruction of property, one might safely assume that the emotional wounds of Kosovo were at least as deep as the damage to its physical infrastructure.
The human resource needs of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo were considerable. To complement the professional staff, the United Nations Volunteer (UNV) Program put out an urgent call for UNV candidates (UNV Press Release, 1999). As the requirements for these positions describe, it is expected that prospective candidates would have a genuine interest and commitment to supporting the efforts of others, must have at least a university degree, five or more years of professional related experience, and an ability to work in partnership and to adjust to difficult living conditions. Clearly, UNVs were to provide a vital portion of the overall UN workforce in Kosovo, and needed to demonstrate not only willingness, but a proven ability to perform within the ranks of UN professional staff.
UNV roles and responsibilities were as diverse and demanding as those of their professional UN counterparts. A broad range of humanitarian, legislative, and democratization professionals filled the Kosovo UNV roster. Encompassing at least sixty distinct job functions, UNVs contributed their skills to departments of agriculture, finance, reconstruction, information technology, and environmental protection, to name a few. In May 2000, the height of the their presence, at least 700 UNVs were active in the mission. At this time, the Kosovo operation was by far the largest for UNV, followed by East Timor with 350 Volunteers (UNV News Release, 2000).
Considering their sheer numbers and scope of involvement, it is safe to say that the work of UNVs in Kosovo had (and continues to have) a strong impact on the Kosovo mission. The Kosovo UNV Program Support Unit acted as the central office and contact point for all UNVs in the province (1), administering to the day-to-day concerns of UNVs and facilitating their arrival and departure.
Since the UNV program was responsible for such a broad and diverse international presence, one might assume that formal and systematic support and preparation for the UNVs should play a vital role in ensuring an effective overall program. However, experience in the region showed otherwise. I myself received no formal training or job description on arrival (except for a twenty-minute security briefing); through research and conversation with colleagues I learned that other UNVs also received little formal training. Besides a lack of proper preparation for the rigors and complexities of this post-conflict region, overall support for UNVs in the field, administrative and otherwise, appeared to be lacking. I personally experienced many frustrations as a UNV in Kosovo, which were echoed by many colleagues. Though I enjoyed a successful year in spite of these difficulties, and found roles with ever-increasing responsibility and visibility, other UNVs I talked to spoke largely of a frustrating experience. Discussion with friends and colleagues revealed that this frustration focused on a perceived and systematic low level of respect for UN Volunteers in the Kosovo mission. The most frequent factors cited, or assertions made, during these conversations were that UNVs:
}Are paid a low hazard allowance (about one-quarter of the hazard pay allotted to professional UN staff in dangerous duty stations);
} Are given little to no training or orientation upon arrival;
} Encounter a virtual brick wall for professional advancement;
} Endure low appreciation and discrimination from their professional counterparts within the mission; and,
} Enjoy little organizational support.
During the fourteen months I spent in Kosovo, and especially throughout my work with the UNV program, I recognized first-hand the real importance of these issues. I saw a breakdown of relations between Kosovars and expatriates, and between UN professional staff and UN Volunteers; I witnessed my own stress and burnout, as well as the continuous stress of my counterparts. Possibly most troubling was the ever-mounting frustration of UNVs I spoke with in the mission. There was, as one might imagine in such a strange and stressful environment, any number of specific complaints; however for these complaints there existed very little formalized outlet (2). Hence, during my own tenure, the frustration of UNVs only grew.
The amount of discussion and thought paid to these circumstances warranted further probing. Though the primary effects of these conditions are borne by the Kosovo UNVs themselves, their place as a fundamental component of the UN mission in Kosovo suggests deep implications for the mission at large. UNVs are ambassadors to their host environment, and are likely to transmit their morale and preparation (or lack thereof) to their colleagues, or importantly, to Kosovars themselves. As such, I saw the need to investigate these conditions, and draw attention to clearly described findings, with the ultimate aim of improving the program.
To explore these circumstances further, I set out to research the broader topic of Kosovo UNV job satisfaction. I originally imagined that UNVs were by and large dissatisfied with their work in Kosovo as a result of these perceived and outright unsupportive elements; I hoped to inform the local UNV Support Office in Prishtina and the UNV Program Headquarters in Bonn, Germany of my revelations and recommendations. To explore the causes and potential ramifications of this (assumed) dissatisfaction, I created a questionnaire that explored many related factors of the full work environment for the Kosovo UNV.
Research Question
While my original question intended simply to gauge the work satisfaction of Kosovo UNVs, the completed instrument inquired about a number of related issues, which correspond to levels of work satisfaction. These included motivation, promotion, pay and preparation questions elements that have been described in the literature to have varying influence on work satisfaction.
As the responses began to arrive, I saw emerging trends that have since led to a modification of the research question. While based on data from the same instrument, I concluded that these unexpected trends deserved greater analysis than the initial broader issue of job satisfaction. The narrower focus is concerned largely with just a few of the questions from the survey, and with comments from the open areas of the survey. Specifically:
Is UNV (including the local support unit in Prishtina and the Headquarters in Bonn) providing an adequate level of support and training for Kosovo Volunteers? And secondarily,
What are the ramifications for UNV at large, if allegations of poor organizational support and discrimination against Volunteers are broadly supported?
Methodology |
