A joint project in support of Albania’s territorial reform published today the latest survey evaluating the state of local governance in the country. By measuring perceptions of citizens and municipality employees the study shows the four dimensions of good local governance: effectiveness and efficiency; transparency and rule of law; accountability; and citizens’ participation and engagement.
Overall citizens rate municipality performance as inadequate and grade their satisfaction as 4.6 out of 10. However, improvements are quoted in terms of plans, services and existence of new and more transparent rules and practices. Only 34% of municipalities (21 out of 61) are evaluated as ‘good’ by citizens and municipality employees while 64% of them (39 out of 61) perform at ‘average’ level.
The survey was made public during a conference organised by the multi-donor project STAR2 – Support for Territorial and Administrative Reform in Albania – a project implemented by UNDP Albania and funded by the EU, USAID and Swiss, Swedish and Italian cooperation programmes. Three local organisations conducted the survey: Institute for Development and Research Alternatives – IDRA, Urban Research Institute – URI, and the Gender Alliance for Development Centre – GADC.
One of the main findings in the survey is the low level of citizens’ participation and engagement in democratic processes. There is a big difference between assessments by community members and municipality authorities: citizens claim they are not aware of or informed sufficiently about the local plans and they do not feel as partners with their municipalities.
Another important finding is that the majority of municipalities lack a long-term vision for future development and that plans are either missing or not implemented adequately.
The study provides also important recommendations for addressing local governance issues such as implementing fiscal decentralisation and providing municipalities with resources and funds. Another step recommended is to improve willingness for better services and interaction with citizens. In terms of transparency, the study suggests formalization of tracking and monitoring mechanisms to treat citizens’ complaints and requests.
After the Territorial and Administrative Reform municipalities face new opportunities but also challenges. Swiss cooperation programmes in local governance provided technical expertise in designing and implementing the reform.
