BIRN Albania Publishes Report on Transparency of Local Government

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On October 28th the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Albania, launched in Tirana its national monitoring report: Local Government Under the Lens of Freedom of Information. 

This report was published as part of BIRN Albania’s project, Strengthening the Local Partnership between Media and Civil Society.

The project, funded by Leviz Albania and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, aims to strengthen the pressure mechanisms of the public on local government institutions and increase transparency, by strengthening cooperation between journalists, civil society groups and grassroots organizations.

The report contains the results on the transparency of the 61 local government units in Albania, based on 50 indicators. According to the monitoring data this indicators were realised by local municipalities on the level of 43 per cent, with the majority of the municipalities failing to realize half of the monitored indicators.

The findings of the report show that local municipalities in Albania are more transparent when it comes to the category/indicator of “freedom of information” “municipal councils,” while the category where they are less transparent on a national level are: “financial transparency,” “legislation” and “public consultation.”

Apart from the big picture created on the measurement of these indicators on a national scale, the detailed results for every municipality reveal an even more chaotic situation, where the application of the law on freedom of information, which forces municipalities to make public or available certain amount of information and documents in hardcopy and online, it’s not determined by the size of the municipality, geographic location or budget.

The monitoring of municipalities for this report was carried out in June 2016 from a network of local journalists across Albania

Click here for copy of the report in Albanian