Albania

Council of Europe Office in Tirana

The Council of Europe organised in Tirana the national conference “Reforms in Local Governance and Public Administration - New opportunities for Local Administration”.

The conference brought together ministers, donors, local government representatives and experts to exchange on the latest developments regarding the public administration reform.

The CoE experts introduced the National Institutional and Training Needs Assessment (NITNA) concerning local government, conducted before local elections of June 2015. The assessment, the first of this kind and scope in Albania, will serve as the baseline for local administration in Albania in the implementation of the local administration reform. The electronic-Platform of Local Administration (e-PAV), a web-based HRM electronic system, designed to serve the purpose of documenting the local administration workforce and competency based inventory were among the key highlights and tools developed and sucessfully implemented by the project covering all LGUs. The above HRM tools, in addition to modernising the HR performance, provide for accurate and realtime data generation for training purposes, linking the civil service performance appraisal with training aspect, etc.

“The root cause for the need of the Public Administration Reform is of political nature: Political parties use the public sector to create employment. Political will is the crucial accelerator towards better services for citizens, as well for reforms towards European integration”, said Swiss Ambassador Christoph Graf. He also mentioned the necessity of separating political power from a professional civil service: “Public servants should not be hired or fired with every political wind that blows. Let us not forget the end user: Albanian citizens benefit from experienced, established and skilled civil servants”, concluded Ambassador Graf.

During her speech, Claudia Luciani, Director of Democratic Governance, welcomed the trust and contribution of the Swiss Government towards the Council of Europe as well as the commitment of the Ministry of Local Issues to the reform of the local self-government. She emphasised that Government of Albania reforms in public administration and local government opens new avenues for fruitful assistance to central and local government institutions with a view to further improving the local self-government functioning in Albania. Ms. Luciani highlighted that together the Council of Europe and the Albanian authorities can further contribute to consolidate achievements finding efficient and workable solutions to a sustainable and advanced human resource management system in local governance in Albania.

Minister of State on Innovations and Public Administration, Milena Harito assured the international partners of the government’s commitment towards the advancement of the Reform in Public Administration, accompanied with modernisation of services bringing those closer to citizens in local communities all over the country. Public Administration and services modernisation reforms complement Self local government and Territorial Administrative Reforms for the best of Albanian citizens. She called on local government representatives to continue taking up legal responsibilities in the process of human resources management in local administration.

Minister of State on local Issues, Bledar Çuçi reassured the international partners of the government’s commitment towards the process of decentralisation and local government autonomy. He called on local government representatives to put all the efforts to advance the implementation of the decentralisation and Territorial Administration reforms continue exercise their responsibilities and increase their performance as envisioned in the Government vision.

Commissioner for the Oversight of the Civil Service, Pranvera Strakosha presented briefly the findings of the recent annual report submitted by her institution to the Parliament. “Due to the administrativeterritorial reform, the local government units underwent into a deep restructuring process. Given the difficulties posed by the implementation of the new law on civil service, the Commissioner has oriented its activity not only in terms of the process of supervision of legality in the administration of civil service but steadily, has oriented the HRM units regarding different institutes of the law. The Commissioner will continue to offer its assistance to LGU for as long as necessary”, said Ms.
Strakosha.

All the deliberations, presentations and exchanges converged towards the need to further consolidate and formalise the already established modern tools and good practices pertaining to HRM at local level, largely supported by the project.

Both, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the Council of Europe, expressed their firm commitment to supporting good governance at local level and Albanian efforts in the EU integration agenda.

For further information please contact:
Elda Bagaviki, [email protected]
Edlira Muhedini, [email protected]