Partners Albania

Partners-Albania Center for Change & Conflict Management was founded in 2001 with a mission to build a culture of change and conflict management in Albania, and has become a national leader in the development of Albania’s third sector.

Partners Albania builds the platforms for communities, civil society organizations, government and business to resolve conflict and advance constructive change.  Partners Albania has over eight years of experience combining local knowledge with innovative tools and techniques to build sustainable solutions and effective leadership. Partners Albania capacity consist in:

Training and on–site assistance design and deliver - Enhance knowledge and strengthen capacities of organizations and governmental institutions at national and international level.

Participatory processes, design and facilitation - Promote collaboration and ensure participation of diverse communities at all levels of decision-making.

Research - Monitor the performance of governmental institutions in support of democratic processes.

Encourage and support citizen initiatives - Promote advocacy tools to build participation, collaboration and ownership in meaningful and effective ways.

Develop and advocate enabling NPO legal framework - Contribute to further development of enabling NPO legal framework and other self-regulatory mechanisms for the sector.

Facilitation of organizational development processes, conferences, and meetings - Provide professional assistance and advanced methodology in facilitation.

The Center’s non-governmental organization training and technical assistance program builds core skills in the civil society sector to better cooperate with government, business, and other sectors. Partners-Albania regularly conducts comprehensive assessments of local NGO capacities and needs in areas including advocacy, anti-corruption and organizational sustainability. Partners Albania Directory of Albanian NGOs provides a comprehensive view of the non-profit sector in Albania and facilitates communication within the NGO sector and between the NGO sector and the government institutions, donors, business and media.

Enhancing Women’s Role in Governance

Through the project ‘Improve Women’s Visibility and Outreach at the Local and Central Level’, Partners Albania promotes women leadership and strengthens the presence of women in public institutions. The project, which focuses on over 10 cities in four main regions of southern Albania, covers areas ranging from leadership to training on gender issues and community relations.

• Leadership and Advocacy Forums: To achieve program goals, Partners Albania organized nine regional forums on advocacy and leadership attended by 160 women. The forums were designed to increase public visibility of women in various areas, including administration, civil society, academia, and the business sector. The forums are intended to help women network at local and regional levels, to support women engagement in professional and public life, strengthen their role in politics, and increase advocacy for achieving Albania’s 30% quota of female seats in parliament.
• Trainings on Gender Mainstreaming: Approximately 250 elected officials, municipal and commune councilors, and civil society representatives have been trained on gender mainstreaming issues. The trainings concentrated on concepts related to gender mainstreaming and the existing legal framework for addressing gender balance. The participants assessed the state of gender mainstreaming at the local level, with a focus on education, vocational training and employment, and services for people in need.
• Engaging Local Communities: Approximately 800 Albanians participated in 24 community meetings that provided an opportunity for interaction between community members and local government representatives. Both parties discussed gender dynamics and public services, including infrastructure, water and sewage, sanitation, education, health, employment, and social aid.

Building the Civil Society Sector

• Partners Albania conducted the most comprehensive assessment of civil society needs in 2001 and again in 2004.  The Center designed and conducted a national survey of 130 active local NGOs providing services to Albanian society. Based on the needs identified in the assessment, Partners – Albania developed the NGO Training and Technical Assistance Program and trained more than 2663 Albanian NGO representatives.  Improvements in Albanian civil society have been reflected in the Freedom House Country Report for Albania in 2006 in which the civil society development index score improved by 0.5 emphasizing that, “Civil society organizations have enhanced their effectiveness through better cooperation with each other and government institutions.” 

• Partners Albania has been a key part of the USAID-funded Democracy and Governance in Albania Program (DGA Program).  In the framework of this program, Partners Albania contributed to strengthening Albanian civil society organizations to actively promote transparency and good governance. Partners Albania administered a $700,000 small grant fund, which supported indigenous nongovernmental organizations to run programs that promote free and fair elections of 2005 and 2007, contribute to the fight against corruption, and promote greater transparency and accountability in local and national government.

• With financial support from the Open Society Institute for Albania, Partners Albania recently organized a series of consultations with the Albanian non-profit sector as part of an initiative to revise and improve the fiscal legal framework regulating non-for-profits in the country. For further information, please see the Assessment Report on the Fiscal Framework of Civil Society in Albania, prepared by the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL) and local experts. The report provides an overview of the pressing issues to be addressed in the fiscal environment for Albanian nongovernmental organizations, European standards and best practices, recommendations and alternatives.

Anti-Corruption

• Partners Albania was the implementing partner to Chemonics on the Millennium Challenge Corporation funded Public Administration Reform Program in Albania.  Partners Albania led public outreach efforts to educate the general population and the business community about anti-corruption initiatives taking place in the tax administration, business registration and public procurement offices of the government. Partners Albania facilitated organization of dozens of trainings and round tables with participation of over 350 representatives of business sector, public administration and media. Partners Albania developed through participatory processes transparency tools such as Internal and External Communication Strategies for the Public Procurement Agency and Public Procurement Advocate’s Office.

• Partners Albania contributed to Millennium Challenge Albania Threshold Program through its research capacity. Partners conducted a survey on National Business Registration Center performance in seven municipalities. In addition, the professional capacity assessment of Large Taxpayers Officials (LTO) and Tirana Taxpayer Official (TTO) supported the reorganization of LTO and TTO on the basis of functional tasks division. 

• Partners Albania major anti – corruption effort is focused at local government as directly responsible for public service provision. Partners Albania assessed transparency in local service delivery in eight municipalities with the main goal reduction of corruption. Based on the finding Partners Albania worked in conjunction with local government administrations to develop action plans, built skills of local administrations on related issues, and assisted them with the implementation by insuring public participation and consultation along the process, dissemination of the lessons learnt at national level. 

• Partners Albania led local businesses to form a “Business Anti-Corruption Coalition” to advocate for reduced corruption.  The coalition was successful in working cooperatively with the local government where both the coalition and public officials signed an “integrity pact” explicitly stipulating that both parties would not pay or accept bribes.

Accountable Governance

• Partners Albania promotes transparency in the municipal budgeting process through innovative programs that has trained till now 477 municipal officials and other civil society groups, together in participatory decision-making skills.  This program has increased the participation of NGOs in the budgeting process, and after participating in the trainings, approximately 60% of local NGOs participated in municipal council meetings in order to have input into their local budget.  As a result, municipal-level policy has been more accountable to citizen’s needs. 

• Partners Albania worked on the “I Support Good Governance” Campaign in Albania.  This campaign mobilized civil society groups to identify their priorities for local government and discuss these issues with candidates for local elections of 2007.  Partners Albania worked with local NGOs to launch awareness campaigns, debates with experts on local TV stations, meetings with the mayoral candidates from each political party, and forums with candidates and interest groups.  Partners Albania also worked with NGOs in the post-election period to develop monitoring tools and advocacy campaigns to encourage elected official to be accountable to their campaign promises.

Freedom of Information

• Through the World Bank Institute support, Partners Albania utilized several techniques to train local NGOs on the newly passed freedom of information law.  Partners hosted a series of live, interactive e-seminars on how to access documents through the new law which included highlighting several test cases.  Through USAID support Partners Albania, under Democracy and Governance Program provided sub-grants and technical assistance to NGOs seeking to access documents for specific initiatives.  When attempts to access documents were futile and public administration was non-responsive to formal appeals due to high political barriers, Partners Albania trained NGOs to use other tools, such as media outreach, to overcome these hurdles.    

Leadership Programs

• Partners Albania organized several leadership programs for women in politics, business, public administration and civil society. Special attention in these programs is given to middle level career women to support a higher representation of women in positions of authority within legislative and executive branch of the government, business and civil society sector. The 2009 elections marked an improvement in women representation in Parliament.

• Youth leadership programs organized by Partners Albania have developed leadership potentials and skills of some hundreds of young professionals working for public administration, businesses, media and NGO sector. They have created their network which enables them to share experiences but also embark in joint initiatives, some supported and/or coached by Partners Albania

• Partners Albania organized a nation-wide participatory planning process, with more than 300 youth participating, to develop a National Youth Strategy and Action Plan for 2006-2011. The Strategy was approved by the Albanian Government in October 2006.