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Tirana, March 24, 2011 – British Council in Albania and the World Bank Office in Tirana announced the winners of the Albania Development Marketplace competition among civil society organizations. The program aims to promote better governance and accountability in Albania.
The winning projects will promote:
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Accountability and transparency at the national and local level; |
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Empowerment of interest groups (or advocacy groups) |
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Anti-corruption activities; |
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Civic education; public access to information; |
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Economic governance; |
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National policies dialogue; |
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Participatory national and local budgeting; |
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Transparency and oversight over the use of budgetary resources; |
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Inclusion of civil society monitoring in public procurement; |
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Participatory processes on prioritization of local public investments; |
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Monitoring of public service delivery. |
The total amount available for this program was $100.000 and the geographical distribution of projects covers almost all regions of the country.
One hundred forty four project-proposals were received and carefully reviewed by the External Evaluation Committee comprising representatives from the donor community and international organizations working with civil society programs, selecting ten winning projects.
The following organizations and their respective projects are the winners:
Regional Development Agency, Korca – Security stamp of Korca business, a way to achieve a better governance and transparency at local level
The project aims to reduce informality in the private sector through provision of security stamps that will identify business that do not pay the taxes and educate the communities in Korça, Pogradec, Erseka, Maliq and Bilisht to support the ones who pay the taxes, taxes that will improve the public infrastructure.
Under this perspective 2798 stamps are distributed and 399 informal busines are identified. Also, 132 informal businesses are registered. This has helped to raise awareness of local government and citizens on informal sector. This initiative has contributed also on the transparency and formality of the employment opportunities in Korca region. 200 people are employed and are declared under social security scheme.
Albanian Media Institute – Monitoring Accessibility Index of Public Institutions, Tirana
The project will assess the level of transparency and accountability of the public administration through comparative legal analysis and empirical research. The proposed Index of government accountability will not only monitor the degree of government’s accessibility and accountability to citizens and media but it will also raise awareness on this key feature of democratic governance and fill the vacuum of information on implementation of this law by public officials.
Art-link – City of the citizens – budget of the citizens – wallet of the citizens, Durrës
This project aims to strengthen the citizens’ awareness and encouragement of democratic actions such as referendum in order to ensure transparency and best use of public resources. The project will achieve this through the documentary that it will produce and by bringing into attention of both people and authorities the good examples and lessons learnt from the history.
The documentary was presented in the beginning of February in Durres and had a very good impact in newspapers and news editions on TV.
Mjaft Movement – Government Public Monitoring, Tirana
The project aims at reinforcing and further developing public monitoring to a comprehensive cycle of matching initiatives. The project will monitor: Government’s ability to pass and carry out reforms, policies and programmes; The level of access to public information; Government’s openness to public participation.
Under this light, the project covered directly 14 ministers, 33 vice ministers; 14 Ministries’ General Secretaries; 145 Departments’ Directors within the ministry. Therefore from the project have been reached directly 206 public officials, whose performance, transparency and promptness to supply the citizens with information have has been monitored constantly.
48 legislative initiative have been approved and as a result of monitoring the legal activities of the Ministries the UneVotoj team noticed that some of the ministries such as the Ministry of Environment has advanced in the legislative area. Also, a good performance has been demonstrated by the Ministry of Justice, making tangible efforts to meet the standards of the EU legislation concerning the law on human rights which now has been ratified.
For the completion of the another activity Unevotoj team mailed to ministries 50 requests made by citizens as well as 50 official requests made by Mjaft Movement. Only 5 official letters have been received in reply to the official requests send by Mjaft. Therefore we conclude that the executive institutions have shown a level of 10 % in transparency and willingness to assist the public.
On a negative note, concerns are raised by the indifference of the ministries toward any of the requests send by the citizens. Nevertheless, given that during May – September there have been major concerns in regards to the recent local elections, this process has affected many of the public institutions and has slowed down the activity of the ministries as well.
European Movement Albania – Encouraging local government accountability: support to the municipality of Vlora to improve public information, Vlora
The project tackles deficiencies in access to information and unaccountable practices in the municipality of Vlora, through support to improve the transparency of its activity and the communication links with the public.
Several consultation sessions with a wide range of local stakeholders were organised. Journalist, civil society actors, academic staff, students, and young researchers addressed the difficulties encountered in obtaining information regarding the work of the municipality, communication and in contributing to policy-making process. During these consultation sessions critical thinking was encouraged in order to collect suggestions on how to exert more pressure for transparency and access to information to the municipality and other local institutions.
The willingness of other important institutions engaged in this project.is followed up by a workshop with Vlora municipality staff . It was discussed the simplified mechanism of assessing information by the citizens.
Gender Alliance for Development Centre – Knowledge for Empowering women – Promoting Employment and Income Opportunities for Women, Durrës, Elbasan, Lezha and Vlora
This project has contributed on the strengthening of the civil society with main focus on increasing the capacities of women in Durrës, Elbasan, Lezha and Vlora on economic issues so that they have a higher level of understanding and acknowledgment of the legislation and the deriving rights by women of the selected areas that will lead to a stronger voice in decision making.
The project addresses the need of women to be informed, be aware and build their capacities not only to ensure equity, but also to guarantee good governance, transparency and to avoid corrupted practices. Lack of information and corruptive practices does not allow women in Albania to be part of labor market as well to fight corruption in the labor market. The project has been developed in Durrës, Elbasan, Lezha and Vlora.
Below there are some results that GDAC has reported about two information workshops in Lezha and Elbasan city respectively.
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Lezha - 17 November 2011 |
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Elbasan – 24 November 2011 |
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a.15 women were informed and trained egarding the labor legislation and labor market |
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a.18 women were informed and trained regarding the labor legislation and labor market |
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ployed women, Lezha Prefecture representatives, representatives of the Municipality Lezha |
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There were 21-55 years old representatives of civil society organizations, unemployed women, representatives of the Elbasan Municipality |
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c.While 70 % pretend to know the labor legislation and 30% of participants in have incomplete knowledge of that |
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20% have incomplete knowledge and 60 % does not know it at all. Only 20% of them know the labor legislation |
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d.10% of participants in Lezha got information on duties of the employer to the employee during the employment relationship, and 20% of the participants improved these information |
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60% of participants in Lezha got information on duties of the employer to the employee during the employment relationship, and 20% of the participants improved these information |
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e.20% of participants got information on the rights of the employer to the employee during the employment relationship, and 30% of the participants improved these information |
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40% of participants got information on the rights of the employer to the employee during the employment relationship, and 20% of the participants improved these information |
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f.20% of participants were informed on responsibilities of national authorities that recognize labor and employment |
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10% of participants were informed on responsibilities of national authorities that recognize labor and employment |
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g.50% of them did not have any information on job seeking at a national or local authority |
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50% of them did not have any information on job seeking at a national or local authority |
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h.40% of participants received information on identifying job opportunities |
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40% of participants received information on identifying job opportunities |
Transparency International Albania – Budget allocation tracking system for implementing national strategy against corruption in Albania, Tirana
This project aims to evaluate the transparency and effectiveness of governmental efforts in the process of implementation of National Anti-Corruption Strategy through: Increasing understanding of anti-corruption structures and organizations on how governmental budget is processed for countering practices; Developing advocacy skills among anti-corruption structures and organizations with the government and community for increasing funds or using more efficiently the funds allocated for such activities.
Around 30 main actors have been consulted about the monitoring Anti Corruption Strategy during February 2012.
Environmental Centre for protection, education and rehabilitation – EPER – Monitoring and evaluation of the policy that directly will support the agricultural development in Fier district, Fier district
The project has contributed to the evaluation of the efficiency and effectiveness on the implementation of the supportive schemes in 2007 to 2010 in Fier district. The study has not only monitored and evaluated what has already been done but also has provided recommendations on how to most efficiently do budget allocation through putting an emphasis on participatory approach of needs identification.
Association of Young Artists on Stage – The involvement of young people in fighting corruption locally, Gramsh, Berat and Malësi e Madhe
The project has actively involved young people from the three selected cities to identify corruption acts that they face in their daily life and come up with pragmatic solutions which will be creatively put together in a photo novel that visually get young people’s attention and not only.
SHARS is implementing a project which aims to raise awareness of teenagers about the subject of corruption. The project has been developed in 3 focus-groups that were conducted in Gramsh, Berat and Koplik. It aimed at identifying the perceptions of young people on corruption, and the typical practices of corruption faced by young people and communities at the local level.
SHARS has finalized the Photo-novel http://issuu.com/jolafoto/docs/thesi-i-tymit prepared by youngsters and will start the group discussion in order to raise the awareness against corruptive actions in the selected areas
Foundation for Economic Freedom – Provision of conditions which enable a real and effective cooperation of public in decision making, through the creation of a set of virtual platforms/programs (blogs) easily accessed and open/public, personalized but interconnected; and administered in an independent way; as a free space where civil society /stakeholders /individuals can interact between them and with the institutional players, country wide
The project aims at facilitating public dialogue among governmental institutions and the public through a set of virtual platforms. The blogs are created and the project team is working to update with information the virtual platforms.
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