Diplomatic Day in Kosovo

It was a very productive Tuesday in Kosovo. We learned a lot about the country of Kosovo and met with many governmental leaders. We kicked off our morning with a an overview of Kosovo from Ambassador Delawie with the U.S. Embassy. He discussed successes and challenges in Kosovo, before we broke into smaller groups to visit with embassy representatives focusing on our specific sectors of interest.

Following our time with Embassy officials we departed for the Kosovo Parliament chamber for a meeting with the speaker of the parliament and members of parliament. Members of parliament and leaders from the Iowa delegation shared perspective on the Kosovo/Iowa partnership. While Kosovo has room for great improvement and advancement there is no doubt the leaders and people of Kosovo have a strong work ethic and willingness to work together to take Kosovo to new heights. Once again, the love for Iowans was shared with the emphasis that they want Kosovo to feel like our second home.

After a spectacular lunch were we enjoyed a typical Albanian lunch we broke into our different sector groups. The agriculture team joined up with the education team to visit with the Minister of Education, Shyqri Bytyqi. All of the education representatives had time to share information about our educational institutions. We briefly discussed a technical training facility that DMACC is leading the development of with the Ministry and the Global Agriculture Learning Center at Hawkeye Community College has been asked to develop and lead the agriulture portion.

We once again broke into smaller groups as our time with Minister Bytyqi came to a close and our agriculture team split from the education team and made our way to the Ministry of Agriculture. We had a great discussion on agriculture with Minister Nenad Rikalo and General Secretary Kapllan Halimi. We were able to discuss the agricultural education development program we are working to implement and the Ministry is excited to move the project forward. We look forward to growing collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture in Kosovo.

We concluded our evening with a specatacular dinner hosted by Erolld Belegu. Tomorrow is a holiday in Europe so many agencies and businesses are closed. We will spend the day exploring agriculture and visiting a high school agricultural education program. Even in Kosovo agricultural educators pull crazy hours welcoming us on their day off.