STRONG MUNICIPALITIES

Context

The Albanian Government seeks to municipalities and their communities. services sensitive to these improve local public services through components are limited, with tariff decentralization. The recent territorial Results of the project exemptions for vulnerable groups reform allows municipalities to take for the waste management service advantage of possible economies of The following are the results of this being the most common instrument scale. While improvements have project: applied currently from occurred, the rhythm been relatively  A situation analysis of selected municipalities. slow, bringing very limited public services: waste management, pre- improvements at the national level. school education, public space lighting MAIN FACTS and public transport, as delivered in the One of the reasons for slow municipalities of Shkodra , PARTNERS improvement is the overlapping of roles , Mirdita, , Përmet, and responsibilities between private and ; . HELVETAS Swiss companies, multi-tasks municipal  An outline of needed legal Intercooperation enterprises and municipal sectoral improvements, both general and sector- . Zürich University of Applied directorates. There are also specific for each of the selected public encroachments and uncertainties services; Sciences, Institute of Public between levels of government, with  A description of good practices in Management (zhaw) consequences on the vertical flow of public service delivery, which may be funds. scaled up with the support of BF at the MUNICIPALITIES national level, in the following phases of Scope and Objective of the project Shkodra Fier, Pogradec, Mirdita, the Program. The scope of the project was to carry out Skrapar, Përmet, Shijak and Klos an assessment identifying opportunities to support municipal service delivery all DURATION over the national territory. The assessment contributed to identifying a  October 2017 – January 2018 limited number of solutions that can be implemented by a large number of CONTACT: municipalities Zana Vokopola The project represents the initial phase Executive Director of the program Strong Municipalities . Its central objective is to Urban Research Institute improve public services, supporting municipal administrations, municipal Social inclusion Dimension Rr. “Asim Vokshi”, Ndërtesa 14 councils and citizens committed to Hyrja 11, Ap. 56 Social inclusion and gender equity were , Albania contribute to better service delivery. important components of the project, Tel: +355 4 2256840 Beneficiaries of the project which were identified in each of the E-mail: [email protected] selected public services across the Web: www.uri.org.al Main beneficiaries of the project are municipalities. In general, public

About URI Since 1999 Urban Research Institute (URI) is carrying out development projects and programs throughout Albania, investigating the social and economic problems confronting the country along with the central and local government policies designed to solve them. URI’s mission in this undertaking is to raise awareness of the society and sharpen thinking about these problems and the impact of governmental policies, with the final purpose of improving the quality of decision-making and implementation at the central and local governmental level. URI cooperates with donors such as USAID, Swiss Cooperation, DLDP, Netherlands Embassy, UNDP, World Bank, EU, SIDA, Open Society Foundation, etc.