The United States will offer Kosovo slightly more than 400 million dollars during a donor's conference in Brussels on Friday, the head of USAID said on Thursday.
"We should be just a little bit over 400 million US dollars, and in that will be a sizable amount, probably about 150 million for debt relief," Henrietta Fore told journalists in Brussels.
"We would anticipate that many others will do the same," she added.
The European Commission, which has organised the conference, hopes to raise one billion euros (1.6 billion dollars) for a social and economic development plan Kosovo has come up with for the 2009-2011 period.
Although the plan will in part be financed by Kosovo's budget, it is also seeking 1.4 billion euros to implement it.
"They have a good plan," said Fore, adding that "we the donor community try to back and support that plan."
"It is a very important moment in (Kosovo's) history and it deserves back-up from all of us," Fore said.
Kosovo with a majority ethnic Albanian population proclaimed independence from Serbia on February 17. Belgrade, which still views the breakaway province as its medieval heartland, has rejected the move as illegal.
Along with the United States, more than 40 countries including all but seven of the EU's 27 member nations have recognised Kosovo's statehood, but others like Russia, China and Spain are refusing to follow suit.
Kosovo is one of the poorest parts of Europe with almost half its two million population living in poverty. Its unemployment rate is around 40 percent.
USAID's mission director to Kosovo Michael Farbman said: "We are counting on substantial contributions in this conference but it is never going to be enough."
"The whole idea is to create an environment, better rule of law and other things for the business environment," he added.
Donors have already contributed around 3.0 billion euros to Kosovo since its 1998-1999 war ended when a NATO bombing campaign ousted Serbian forces waging a brutal crackdown on Albanian separatists.
That was in addition to funding from the United Nations, which has also pumped almost as much money into Kosovo to service its interim mission there, known as UNMIK, since the conflict.
