Supporting Decentralisation and Local Government

Project completed
Albanian women visiting the Bushat municipal office.
Citizens of Bushat in northern Albania are provided with information and services at a new one-stop-shop. © Leonard Qylafi


Switzerland supports Albania's transition to a democratic society. The decentralisation and local development programme (dldp) strengthens local government in North Albania and disseminates best practices at national level. It has introduced new models for local government functioning in areas such as waste management, public finance management, and e-governance.

Country/region Topic Period Budget
Albania
Governance
Rule of Law - Democracy - Human rights
Decentralisation
01.01.2014 - 31.12.2018
CHF  9’620’000

Project highlights

Several innovative practices have been introduced as part of the programme's work in North Albania:

Waste management

Public waste services have been introduced primarily in urban centers. Meanwhile, the coverage in rural areas is still very limited. Municipalities experience difficulties in coping with this function due to its complexity and costs. The project supports municipalities in waste treatment plans, cost and tariff analysis as well as the link to financial planning. A curriculum on waste management planning, monitoring and evaluation was developed by the project and is currently taught by the Albanian School of Public Administration – thus reaching all municipalities.

One-stop-shops

The dldp programme piloted two integrated one-stop-shops, linking the administrative units in rural areas with the main municipality in providing electronic administrative services to citizens. A scaling up to other municipalities is ongoing.

Empowering women in politics

The programme promotes the representation of women and their involvement in political functions at all levels.

  • To achieve greater representation in Parliament, a regional network of women in politics was established. The network helped the candidates in their election campaign and promoted peer learning.  

  • Support is given to public campaigns raising awareness of women's specific needs.