Albania talks with donors on country’s problems

TIRANA, Nov 16 – A Government – Donor Round Table chaired by State Minister Genc Pollo and co-chaired by Dutch Ambassador Henk Van den Dool took place last week considered as an excellent forum for an open and constructive dialogue on discussing the effectiveness of donor assistance.
It was a regular roundtable with senior officials from the government and the donor community in Albania.
Pollo said that in spite of 2009 being the election year, the government kept a steady rhythm of reforms and initiated further ambitious initiatives. He made a resume of the major achievements and reform developments marked since the last meeting in November 2008, and the progress towards European integration.
Addressing issues concerning improvement of external assistance coordination, he pointed out that as a signatory country of the Paris Declaration on the External Assistance Effectiveness, Albania remains fully committed to its principles of “effective leadership, ownership and alignment of development policies, and strategies”.
Van Den Dool addressed the roundtable on behalf of the donor community hailing the effective ‘bridging role’ the Department for Strategy and Donor-Coordination performed between the donor community and the government. Line ministries were called upon to take on even greater leadership of the Sector Working Groups to help evolve these into forums where the government’s strategic vision and operational outlook are shared and discussed and sector wide programmes can be developed.
Staff turnover in the public sector was noted as a risk for the sustainability of capacities and institutions that have been built with considerable financial and technical donor assistance.
European Integration Minister Majlinda Bregu and EC Ambassador Helmuth Lohan spoke on issues related to EU Integration following the application for EU candidate status on 28 April 2009. Bregu highlighted that the government is working intensively for the fulfillment of conditions and requirements to achieve candidate status being fully aware that this the biggest challenge of the Albanian government.
An overview of macroeconomic and fiscal situation in Albania was given by Finance Minister Ridvan Bode, who also highlighted the sustained economic growth despite of the global financial crisis.
DSDC Director Valbona Kuko made a detailed presentation of the IPS implementation and recognized the achievements of the joint work of Government and donor community in strengthening coordination through Sector Working Groups (SWGs) and preparation of a Harmonization Action Plan to implement Paris Declaration.
The government and donor representatives concluded the event by identifying a few concrete issues to make further progress over the next year.