Others on us

on: 20 Sep 2016

Publisher

Veton Surroi

20 years ago when Muhamet Mustafa asked me for a favor, to write a supporting letter to CIPE (Center for International Private Entrepreneurship) in Washington I did not know exactly what is it that I had to support . It sounded like an enterprise name, RIINVEST, meaning a commercial activity that leads towards ri-investing. Back then, in 1995, entrepreneurship and every other aspect of life in Kosovo was suppressed under the Serbian occupation and the very idea that someone is starting a new initiative was both tedious (because of difficulties easily evident from the Serbian authorities) and challenging (because they still had the energy to start anything, even though the difficulties were known).

I had faith in Muhamet Mustafa when he explained that an institute that will be dealing with economy, that will analyze the economic situation and prepare a vision for the future is being planned. In the occupied Kosovo, we were all dreamers, we all lived and acted dreaming that the occupation will come to an end. Riinvest’s dream seemed like a well designed dream: one day, when we free ourselves, we will need people and ideas to lift the country's economy which occupation was deliberately sinking.

This belief in the dream of the founders of Riinvest made â€‹â€‹me feel rewarded throughout the years of the life of Riinvest. During these years, while attending international conferences by institutes and other notable organizations in the world, Riinvests’ voice as participants whether in discussion or as analytical material for debate (quoted from the speakers, including me) established the level of seriousness that the arguments for and about Kosovo gave adequate reliability.

In 1999, when Kosovo’s delegations was leaving for Rambouillet, I sought Muhamet Mustafa’s and other Riinvest experts’ help, so that, if necessary, the Kosovo delegation could rapidly consult about economic issues, on diverse issues such as regulation of tax relations between Kosovo and Serbia at the time when Kosovo should be under the protectorate or for the issue of succession ( including property and international debts).

At that time, I noticed a discrepancy between the adviser and the one being advised: Riinvest was the right path to create a consistent economic advice, but Kosovo ws not in the right way to create a leadership that would listen to it, consistent economic advice.

In this environment, more or less Riinvest’s activity developed after the liberation. In this environment, the institute may have not produced many tips that were heard by the powers, whether international or local powers in Kosovo, but with a consistency it has created a new generation of researchers and practitioners who maintain their academic dignity as well as their independence from the submission and compliance to politics, pre-politics and its pressures.

Throughout the years, Riinvest’s vast participation in the civil society tables has been a necessity in terms of the depth of the debate and even as evidence that creative and analytical thinking is evident in Kosovo, even though it is not heard in state institutions.

Today, in its 20th anniversary, Riinvest is prepared for a different time, when we will be liberated from the primitivism in leading elites, when in this country the discrepancy between the capacity to give advice and lack of capacity to accept them is diminished.

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