Evaluation: Stimulating SME growth and enhancing market and economic development, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Purpose and use

This evaluation assesses Sida’s core institutional support to the Innovation Centre Kosovo (ICK) over the period 2019-2024. The evaluation offers an independent assessment of ICK’s performance, the results achieved through Sida’s support, and the institution’s readiness for long-term sustainability.

Conclusion

Sida’s core support helped ICK remain a relevant and trusted actor in Kosovo’s innovation ecosystem, enabling continuity of services and contributing to digital skills and early-stage entrepreneurship. However, institutional and structural weaknesses limited sustained outcomes and wider impact. ICK’s sustainability will depend on modernising governance, reducing financial vulnerabilities, and repositioning within a more competitive ecosystem. Strengthening these foundations is essential for ICK to build on past investments and continue contributing to Kosovo’s digital and entrepreneurial development.

Recommendation

Sida shifts from a single-institution model toward a broader ecosystem approach, focusing future support on coordinated interventions that strengthen Kosovo’s innovation system. Any future institutional funding should be preceded by stronger governance due diligence, ensuring partners have clear structures, transparency, and compliance.

Purpose and use

This evaluation examines how Sida integrates conflict sensitivity across its strategies and operations, with the purpose of strengthening learning and improving how Sida’s work affects peace and conflict dynamics.

Conclusion

It finds that conflict sensitivity is increasingly embedded in Sida’s portfolio but applied unevenly across contexts. Stronger results emerge where analysis is continuous, partner capacity is high, and adaptation is proactive. Weak monitoring systems and inconsistent feedback loops limit learning and the ability to track outcomes or anticipate risks.

Recommendation

The evaluation recommends establishing minimum standards for conflict sensitivity across all strategies, ensuring regular context updates, strengthening monitoring, evaluation and learning systems with simple indicators, and proactively addressing recurring risks such as gender backlash, unequal targeting, and challenges linked to country exits.

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Annexes

Annex 1: Annex list
Annex 2: Country case studies