Digital Services and ICT in Kosovo

This chapter examines Kosovo’s digital transformation through the lens of the Developmental Network State (DNS), focusing on how governance, learning, and coordination evolve under structural constraint. Despite weak institutions, limited resources, and persistent donor dependence, Kosovo’s ICT sector has emerged as a dynamic engine of capability accumulation. Drawing on evidence from industry data and stakeholder interviews, the chapter explores how diaspora actors, freelancers, start-ups, and donor initiatives collectively shape a new form of networked governance. It identifies key enablers, including a digitally skilled youth population, transnational knowledge flows, and bottom-up learning ecosystems, as well as enduring bottlenecks in skills, finance, and cross-sector integration. Municipal initiatives and informal partnerships demonstrate how local experimentation can foster adaptive learning, even in low-capacity settings. The analysis highlights that Kosovo’s progress has not resulted from centralized policy or institutional strength, but from distributed problem-solving and relational coordination across public, private, and diaspora networks. The chapter concludes that digital catch-up in latecomer economies depends on embedding these networked forms of governance within light institutional frameworks that sustain learning, feedback, and collective capability building over time.