Good practice

Kosovo's 30% Gender Quota for Assembly Candidate Lists (Law No. 03/L-073, 2008)

Kosovo's Law No. 03/L-073 (2008) mandates ≥30% of each gender on Assembly candidate lists, alternating every 3 names. Women's Assembly seats have stayed above the floor at every election since: 32.5% (2014, 2019), a record 35.8% (Feb 2021), and 33.3% (2025).

35.8%

Women's Assembly seats, Feb 2021 (Feb 2021)

33.3%

Women's Assembly seats, Feb 2025 (Feb 2025)

5.2%

Senior ministry leadership posts held by women (2015)

Details

Maturity: Established
Promoter: Assembly of Kosovo / Central Election Commission of Kosovo
Period: 2008–present
Keywords: elections, political representation, gender quota, legislation

Context

Kosovo's 2008 Law on General Elections (No. 03/L-073) requires at least 30% of each gender on Assembly candidate lists, with a placement rule guaranteeing at least one candidate of each gender in every group of three names, checked by the Central Election Commission before certification.

Results

Because Kosovo uses an open-list system, women's seat share has stayed consistently above the 30% floor across four elections — 32.5% (2014, 2019), a record 35.8% (Feb 2021) and 33.3% (Feb 2025) — but multiple independent analysts find the quota functions more as a ceiling than a floor, and a 2017 EU-funded study found women held only 5.2% of senior government ministry leadership posts in 2015 despite candidate-list compliance.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

C-NAPSE web research — accessed 2026-07-05
Assembly of Kosovo / Central Election Commission of Kosovo — accessed 2026-07-05
NDI — Kosovo Post-Election Analysis, Parliamentary Elections 2021 — accessed 2026-07-05
Equal Future Eurasia — Kosovo country page — accessed 2026-07-05
Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung — Beyond the gender quota — accessed 2026-07-05
EU-hosted Kosovar Gender Studies Center — Women's Participation in Decision-Making in Kosovo (2017) — accessed 2026-07-05
ACE Electoral Knowledge Network — Law on General Elections text — accessed 2026-07-05

Quality score: 74/100

How is this calculated?

Evidence: Observational / pre–post

Top 37% in this catalogue (719 scored practices)

Scores cluster high, so position within the catalogue is often more telling than the number alone.

Evaluation

Evaluated by C-NAPSE

Score profile — the dimensions behind the score — how it's computed

Sustainability1/1

The quota has applied without interruption across every Assembly election since 2008, the longest continuous run of the four candidates researched.

Achievement / evidence1/1

A record 43 women elected (35.8%) in February 2021 is a concrete, independently documented achievement (NDI).

Transferability / replicability2/3

The list-alternation quota mechanism is a standard, portable model used across the Western Balkans, though evidence of Kosovo's own law being replicated elsewhere is not documented in the sources reviewed.

Impact on gender equality1/1

Women's Assembly representation has held between 32.5% and 35.8% across five elections since the quota's introduction, a sustained measured effect (NDI, Equal Future Eurasia).

Effectiveness1/1

The 30% floor has been met or exceeded at every election since 2008, achieving the law's core nomination target (Equal Future Eurasia, KGSC).

Efficiency0/1

No cost or administrative-efficiency data for enforcing the quota was found in any source reviewed.

Evaluated outcomes1/1

NDI's post-election analyses and the EU-funded KGSC report provide quantified, cycle-by-cycle outcome data from 2014 through 2025.

Gender-mainstreaming embedding1/1

Kosovo's separate 2015 Law on Gender Equality sets a 50% representation target across legislative, executive and judicial bodies, extending gender considerations well beyond the electoral quota alone.

Curator validation0/1

Not yet reviewed by a C-NAPSE human curator; evaluation reflects automated evidence-based scoring only.

Cite this

Evidoria. Kosovo's 30% Gender Quota for Assembly Candidate Lists (Law No. 03/L-073, 2008). Persistent ID: 24f37086-e2a6-4e04-bc22-5a9299982565.

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