Every year, the staff at the Kosovo Chamber of Commerce (KCC) work to produce business confidence indexes—bodies of research that serve as a credible voice to showcase the perceptions of businesses on economic phenomena and public policies. This crucial work, exemplified best in products such as the ‘Kosovo business climate’ index, represents the outlook of local businesses on key issues that affect them, and are made use of widely by Kosovo institutions including the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance, with donor organizations also frequently making use of the findings to inform programmatic interventions.

Given the importance of KCC’s work in Kosovo in promoting economic development and macroeconomic policies, EYE recently entered into a partnership with the institution to build their capacities to provide relevant market information and use digital tools to improve their efficiency. The training covered everything from methodology, sample design and questionnaire design, to data collection, analysis, and reporting.

Research skills are a valued commodity to any organization in Kosovo, especially to KCC, which represents a great number of businesses and must ensure that data collection accurately reflects the views of entrepreneurs. “With EYE’s support, we’re investing in our young staff who are the primary data collectors and interviewers,” says Olivera Ceni Bardiqi, director of the department for economic analysis and policies ad KCC. “These young people are engaged as data collectors for short-time work; but after this training, they will all be able to become employed as fully-fledged researchers. This training is giving them the full package of skills to produce descriptive analyses.”

At EYE, we believe the role of chambers is crucial in increasing business competitiveness and giving the private sector a stronger voice in decision-making and policy. The chambers' research is particularly important, as it effectively informs decision-makers about business community concerns. Through this partnership, EYE is helping KCC’s research department utilize digital research tool to capture data, and enhance the accuracy, quality and efficiency of their research.