On Thursday, April 23, Re-ACT Lab, in partnership with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Office in Pristina, hosted a dynamic policy design workshop titled "Co-designing public policies: Labour Shifts due to Automation and the Digital Divide". 

The workshop hosted more than 25 key stakeholders in Kosovo, including high-level governmental representatives, operational agencies, businesses and civil society actors. The goal was to move beyond traditional debates and actively co-design proactive policies to build institutional and societal resilience against two interconnected shocks: the Labour Shifts due to Automation and the Digital Divide. 

The work organised in this workshop was based on the findings and the key recommendations provided by Re-ACT Lab in their research publications assessing the institutional and societal resilience in Kosovo against these two shocks: 

1. Labour Shifts due to Automation 

2. Digital Divide: From a Gap to a Shock

During Session I of the workshop, the focus shifted to the presentation of the findings and the Re-ACT Lab’s research. Under the direction of Gresa Smolica (Executive Director at Re-ACT Lab) and Sokol Zeneli (Director of Research and Programmes at Re-ACT Lab), participants were invited to explore the interactive Logic Maps, which visually presented the core findings of the research, the assessment methodology and results, key recommendations, etc. As part of this presentation, the facilitators also included the ‘legislative parameters’ on the recommendations, gathered during the consultation phase with the members of parliament and representatives of relevant ministries in Kosovo, conducted as part of phase I of this workshop. 

Moving from research to practice, Session II divided the participants into working groups tasked with preparing and designing actionable policies.  

As part of this session, the groups utilised customised Policy Canvases to break down research recommendations into concrete steps to follow, turning them into public policies. To ensure these policies were politically viable, participants worked within proposed legislative parameters gathered during the consultation phase. This grounded the creative process of co-designing in policy canvas in political reality. 

Under the facilitation of Paulina Behluli, the workshop continued with Session II, where the working groups presented their draft policy canvas in a plenary setting. This session functioned as a live negotiation, allowing participants to identify cross-institutional support and dependencies from the actions planned in each public policy. 

This collaborative environment ensured that no policy was designed in isolation. 

Re-ACT Lab promotes research and innovation as a means to advance governmental and policy-making reforms in Kosovo and regionally.