Albanian-Dutch expert to head UNESCO’s media council

TIRANA, Nov. 27 – Albanian-Dutch expert Albana Shala has become the first ever woman to be elected as chairperson of the UNESCO’s media development council, The Council of the International Programme for Development of Communication (IPDC). Albana Shala, an expert with more than 15 years of experience in the independent media development field, has been working as programme coordinator at Free Press Unlimited, a Dutch organization supporting independent media in more than 40 countries.
IPDC was set up in 1980 as the only intergovernmental programme in the UN system mandated to mobilize international support in order to contribute to sustainable development, democracy and good governance by strengthening the capacities of free and independent media. Since its creation, IPDC has channeled about US$ 105 million to over 1,700 media development projects in some 140 countries.
Albana Shala, 46, grew up in Tirana, Albania. She studied English and translated fiction and nonfiction from English into Albanian. In 1990, she began working for the UNDP office in Tirana. In 1995, she moved to the Netherlands to study International Law and Development at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague and soon thereafter established herself in Amsterdam.
Her first poems and short stories appeared in journals and magazines in Albania and Kosovo. In 2008, her first Albanian poetry collection Papa Dixhital was published in Tirana by Dituria. For this debut she was awarded the prestigious Migjeni prize by the Ministry of Culture of Albania (2009). A Dutch translation of this debut (De digitale Paus) was published in 2009 by Uitgeverij P (Leuven). Shala’s second poetry collection “Parajsa eshte e portokallte” (Paradise is Orange) appeared in the fall of 2010. She was a resident with the International Writing Program in 2010.