Project Title: “Empower Environmental Civil Society Organizations to promote nature protection in Albania”
This project is financed by the European Union, through the IPA Civil Society Facility and Media Programme 2016- 2017 “Support to Civil Society Organizations capacities”
The concept of the project
Although Albania has a high biological diversity (containing around 30% of the European flora), biodiversity is suffering immense damages in recent years, and in many cases irreversible such as in the case of HPPs, quarries, construction of infrastructure, etc., which have seriously affected the habitats of critically endangered and endangered species. Nature in Albania is highly fragmented and unable to, respond effectively to new pressures and continuous threats including illegal logging, fishing, hunting, uncontrolled tourism and recreation activities, coastal erosion, fires, impacts of climate change, weak law enforcement and ineffective management approaches applied in practice. The involvement of local communities in protected area management and local nature resources is insufficient. This situation hampers the effective implementation of environmental and nature conservation policy, and easily leads to unnecessary conflicts and misunderstandings.
The causes of corruption in the environmental sector especially nature conservation and sustainable use includes typical causes attributed to any other sectors: insufficient legislation, lack of respect for the rule of law, weak democracy, wide authority given to public officials, minimal accountability and transparency, poor enforcement, low levels of professionalism, and perverse incentives. In addition, corruption in the environmental sector is also triggered by conflicts between private interests in revenue that can be gained from environmental resources and public interests in a healthy environment. This situation is exacerbated by non-transparent decision-making that excludes the voices of citizens, leading to non-sustainable developments that damage the environment.
Within this context the action titled: Empower Environmental Civil Society Organizations to promote nature protection in Albania aims to to improve sustainable management of environment especially the nature assets in 4 protected areas by fostering participatory and transparent governance inclusive of environmental civil society and supported by public authorities and media.
The Action has officially started in 1 May 2018 and has duration of 36 months. It involves two implementing nongovernmental ECSOs, national,and international and one Public Institution as associated partner: Institute for Nature Conservation (INCA) is the lead applicant; the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is the co-applicant and will provide technical advisory support on this project. The associated partner is the National Protected Areas
Agency. NAPA will support and facilitate the communication of the project with the public institutions and will profit from the capacity building of this project for is regional working at relevant Regional Agencies for Protected Areas (RAPAs) in four pilot areas.
The Project objective
Overall objective: is to Support CSO's advocacy work to promote environment protection, fight against corruption in environment and climate change, increase the right to information on decision- making process affecting environment.
Specific Objective:
- To enhance and strength the skills and active role of the Environmental Civil Society Organisations (ECSOs) to enforce the law, fight the corruption and reduce the negative impacts on the nature conservation and protected area management.
- To encourage the co-operation among ECSOs and public authorities, local communities, and media, and foster networking and their partnership building,
Achievement of this objective will be built on successfully implementing the four expected results aimed at:
- Capacity building
- Regulatory framework improvement
- Active participation
- Awareness raising
Key stakeholders and target groups in this process include
- environmental civil society organizations,
- authorities responsible for nature conservation, sustainable use of natural resources and PAs management on all levels of government,
- private sector,
- local communities where target PAs are located and
- local and national media.
Minigrant Scheme for ECSO-s
In the frame of this project, capacity building of Environmental Civil Society Organizations (ECSOs) from Albania is also planned via awarding some of local ECSOs with grants. In this context one of the main components of this project is the Grant program called “Civil Society Capacity Building for Advocacy and Public Participation in decision-making processes on the use and management of natural resources". Specifically, they are supported individual or groups of ECSO in 4 pilot areas of the project. Consequently, selected beneficiary ECSOs will increase their knowledge, skills and capacities to broaden engage in advocacy activities at the national levels and especially at the local area pilot sites selected and participate in decision-making processes related to nature conservation and management of protected areas .The beneficiary CSOs will join a national network together with the project partners while actively participating in the main project activity.
Project implemented by:
Project Leader : Institute for Nature Conservation in Albania (INCA)
INCA is an NGO established in July 2000, seated in Tirana and operating in the country and region through its partner organizations. INCA’s main goal is to facilitate professional capacity building through training and participatory approach, to help conservation of nature and protect Albanian flora and fauna, supporting the rural development of the country. It focuses on biodiversity assessment, protected areas and river basin management, and implements projects in Albania and in transboundary context. INCA is a member of IUCN and the Global Water Forum (GWF), and it represents WWF in Albania. It leads the national NGO network “Nature Conservation” since April 2013. http://www.inca-al.org/
Co-Applicant: International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
IUCN is a membership Union uniquely composed of both government and civil society organizations. It provides public, private and non-governmental organizations with the knowledge and tools that enable human progress, economic development and nature conservation to take place together.Created in 1948, IUCN is now the world’s largest and most diverse environmental network, harnessing the knowledge, resources and reach of more than 1,300 Member organizations and some 16,000 experts. It is a leading provider of conservation data, assessments and analysis. Its broad membership enables IUCN to fill the role of incubator and trusted repository of best practices, tools and international standards. IUCN provides a neutral space in which diverse stakeholders including governments, NGOs, scientists, businesses, local communities, indigenous peoples organizations and others can work together to forge and
implement solutions to environmental challenges and achieve sustainable development.Working with many partners and supporters, IUCN implements a large and diverse portfolio of conservation projects worldwide. Combining the latest science with the traditional knowledge of local communities, these projects work to reverse habitat loss, restore ecosystems and improve people’s well-being.https://www.iucn.org/ecaro
Associated partner –National Agency for Protected Areas in Albania
National Agency of Protected Areas is the main state institution responsible for the nature and biodiversity protection and conservation in Albania. Its main mission is to take care for the nature resources in Albania through the management of the network of the protected areas and promotion of their values undertaking public awareness and environmental education activities and supporting sustainable socio-economic activities within the protected areas. NAPA during its relatively short period had been part of the development of management plan, including the Marine Protected Area Karaburun-Sazan, as well as in the direct investment in infrastructure and human capacity building process. Furthermore the Agency is developing new proposal for increasing the PA surface in the country, including a designation of a new marine protected area. http://akzm.gov.al/
