World fund helps Albania coordinate international aid

TIRANA, Jan. 19 – The World Bank and Albania signed a 5.85 million euro grant last week as a trust fund from different western powers to help the tiny Balkan country better coordinate the planning management.
The three-year program, funded from the European Commission, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Italy and Switzerland, will serve as a broad planning and monitoring framework aimed to ensure that the core Government policies and financial processes are developed in an integrated manner, according to a statement.
The Trust Fund, which will be applied and monitored by the World Bank, will finance several components aimed at building and strengthening capacities in various government agencies.
Albania joined the World Bank in 1991 after the fall of the communist regime.