Encouraging further Transparency, Public Access to Information at Local Level

The main objective of this project is to encourage the development of more accountability, transparency, and client responsiveness into public service delivery in Albania by amplifying the citizens’ voice and strengthen their role into service monitoring.

Improved delivery of public services is a key part of any government strategy and it should be the basic principle of any public agency and local authority. The project has selected two level of services provided by two different institutions but both serving the local communities: (i) services provided by the municipalities and the way the information about these services is delivered to the citizens (ii) services provided by the IPRO offices at the local level.

The project will contribute towards expanding good governance efforts to the local level, by improving the transparency and quality of public service delivery to the citizens. The project will have a total duration of 12 months.

The projects will focus on supporting the municipalities and IPROs (Immovable Property Registration Offices) of Korca, Fier and Shkodra to improve information flow by addressing both ‘sides’ of the public information loop and citizen-to-government through development of a Citizen Report Card (CRC).

The Objectives of the project will be:

• To increase access of local stakeholders in monitoring of delivery of public services, and to effectively participate in the decision-making processes
• To enhance the capacity of the municipalities of Korca, Fier and Shkodra to communicate and be more accountable to their citizenry on local government service delivery
• To develop mechanisms that facilitate improvement of the flow of information at the local level related to IPROs services.

The project will encourage greater understanding of the root causes and encourage further transparency, public access to information and citizens’ participation in the democratic dialogue. It will also promote and increase the level of accountability of the administration in the local level.

Expected Results:

The proposed project activities would contribute to improvements in delivery of public services at the local level and increase accountability of local government units and local branch agencies. Intermediate outputs towards this objective are expected to be:

• increased civil society and wider local communities and citizens capacity to inform itself for engaging in decision-making for and monitoring of public services at the local level (ensure accountability);
• increased capacity of local agencies for receiving and using user feedback – and disseminating relevant information (ensure transparency);
• greater opportunities for citizen access to information and public decision-making (through the information dissemination); and
• data on actual and perceived performance of the quality of public services from the municipality and IPROs.

It is hoped that close scrutiny and utilization of CRC results will lead to progressively better measurement of effectiveness of service delivery at the local level. Yet, much can be learned already from the information in the initial report card about the potential of this tool to improve public service delivery and accountability to clients.

Until today, the questionnaire is being prepared, local partners are selected and a trainings is envisaged to prepare for the dissemination and data gathering.