Empowering local government to implement the Law on Whistleblowers

This grant is supported by the ‘Civil Society programme for Albania and Kosovo’, financed by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and managed by Kosovar Civil Society Foundation (KCSF) in partnership with Partners Albania for Change and Development (PA).

Period of project implementation: January 2020 – January 2021

The overall objective of this project is to increase the public’ awareness and faith on the legislation on whistle blowers, through contributing for the fight against corruption in Albania through a better implementation of the Law on Whistleblowers on local level. More concretely, through this project, AHC aims to reach the following specific objectives: 1) To raise awareness and informing employees at the local level institutions (municipalities) on legislative provisions for Whistleblowers. 2) To encourage cooperation between employees, units responsible for whistleblowers set up in municipalities and HIDAAI to treat and address the cases in an effective and objective manner. 3) To monitor the implementation of the Law no. 60/2016, lobbying and advocating with the aim to focus in the activity of the responsible units in 10 Municipalities and of HIDAACI.

The 10 municipalities in which AHC will implement the foreseen activities are: Tirana, Durres, Elbasan, Shkoder, Lezhe, Kukes, Vlora, Diber, Gjirokastra and Korca.

The results of project implementation: During the first months of project implementation have been drafted and signed 11 Memorandum of Understanding with 10 Municipalities and HIDAACI, in order to determine the main directions of cooperation and modalities for its realization, in order to improve the treatment and respect for the freedoms and rights of whistleblowers, and to sensitize employees of public authorities to implement the legislation for the protection of whistleblowers. Has been designed and promoted an informative leaflet in electronic version. In the following months, it will be distributed in 1000 copies. Monitoring of the establishment of responsible units in the Municipality will be carried out in accordance with the methodology drafted by experts in the field. Special attention has been paid to informing the public, through the publication of the activities undertaken by AHC on the page dedicated to FB “Whistleblowing of corruption in the municipality”.

In the following months, 10 information sessions will be held with the employees of 10 Municipalities in the country, in order to increase the capacities and raise the awareness of the employees for the legal provisions in the protection of the whistleblowers. The qualitative and quantitative data provided by HIDAACI and Municipalities will be assessed and processed in an individualized database established. Public awareness on this initiative will increase, after the engagement of 1 journalistic expert who will publish awareness articles in the print and electronic media. The report that will be drafted at the end of this initiative will be consulted at a roundtable with the responsible actors and will be published in 300 copies.