Homeposts – Page 26 – Albanian Institute of Science

10 organizations meet in Tirana on the Perspective of Open Contracting Standards in the Regio

01/09/2016/in Events, Homeposts, Press Releases /by admin

Open Data against abuse and corruption using public money. Ten regional organizations met in Tirana on 28-29 July at a workshop organized by AIS: Civil Monitoring of Public Procurement. The participants analyzed how transparent the data from different phases of public contracting are and presented some CSO initiatives for citizens’ monitoring of public procurement in Albania, BiH, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Rumania, and Serbia. Considering Public Contracts as the number one risk of corruption, representatives of ACER/SELDI, Alternativa, Riinvest, TI for BiH, Initiativa Romania, Open Data Kosovo, Metamorfoza, ANTTARC, KDI, and AIS emphasized the need for applying Open Contracting Standards in the Region. There was also a presentation of Open Contracting Partnership as an effort for Brighter Government Deal-making: save money and time, improve service delivery, boost integrity, and create a fair business environment. The presentations of the workshop are all published on AIS website.

AIS starts the new program “Transparency with the Public Health Sector Procurements”.

18/08/2016/in Events, Homeposts /by admin

AIS started to work in July on disclosing procurement data from the Health Sector. The newest project on Public Health Sector Procurements will enable the creation, promotion, and use of a well-structured database, which serves as an instrument (tool) for transparency, information, citizens’ monitoring about procurement processes of the Public Health Sector for 2016. Fact-based journalism and fact-based public debate is the final purpose of the creation of such well-structured database. Accordingly, it will provide exhaustive information about every public procurement process in the health sector. The project is supported by the US Embassy in Tirana in the framework of the Democracy Commission Small Grants Program. The database with open data for the Public Health Sector shall be placed on the Open Procurement Albania portal, where data about local government procurement processes are disclosed on daily basis.

Control of the Conflict of Interest leads to opening data about assets declared by high level officials of the Bank of Albania

12/08/2016/in Homeposts, Press Releases /by admin

As part of our Money Government and Politics (MGP)Project, data on assets declared by high officials of the Bank of Albania are published under the Money and Power section.Such declarations shed light on property and economic interests of high officials, who have the authority to take decisions about bank policies, which are so significant for the country. The data disclose information about the structure of assets and incomes, sources of properties gained during the time they have been in office, and about their economic interests. The Money and Power section opens data and gives people access to monitor information about the wealth, Incomes and expenses of public officials. The same section offers also updated data about additional financial and assets disclosure declared by Members of the Parliament over the last year.

Public Health Sector Procurements

12/07/2016/in Homeposts, Past Projects, Projects /by admin

The Public Health Sector Procurements Project has enabled the creation, promotion, and use of a well-structured database, which serves as an instrument (tool) for transparency, information, citizens’ monitoring about procurement processes of the Public Health Sector for 2016. The database contains well-structured data, updated in real time^[1] and filters for ensuring user friendly information. It serves as an instrument for anti-corruption. Fact-based journalism and fact-base public debate is the final purpose of the creation of the well-structured database. It provides exhaustive information about every public procurement process in the health sector, and every public health policy-making and service institution, including the Institute for Health Insurance as an institution responsible for the obligatory public insurance scheme. Procurement processes of all kinds and values shall be controllable by the public in real time and in compliance with open contracting data standard

The objective of this project is to establish a platform that makes the public tenders and procurement contracts of the public health sector (institutions) open and easily monitor-able by citizens. The platform allows the citizens to observe which high-value services, works, or public purchases are being contracted, as well as monitor aggregated amounts of money allocated to public health programs. These data are interlinked with the Open Corporate Albania, creating a complete profile for each company that serves as an online Corporate Passport. The proposed platform and the dissemination activities around it shed the missing light on the procurement procedures and tenders, which are directly related to the citizens’ quality of life and health services for citizens.

Donator : US Embassy through the Democracy Commission Small Grants Program

[1] Open tender, calls for proposals, direct negotiations, public-private partnership procurement, consultations, and auctions for the period 1 January – 30 December 2016

‘Civil Society Monitoring Public Procurement and Contracts’ Workshop Tirana, 29 July 2016

30/06/2016/in Events, Homeposts /by admin

AIS organized on 29 July 2016, in Tirana, a Workshop on Civil Society Monitoring Public Procurement and Contracts.

Roundtables – Promotion of Transparency over Local Government Budgets

25/06/2016/in Events, Homeposts, Press Releases /by admin

The USAID Planning and Local Governance Project (PLGP) in cooperation with the Albanian Institute of Science (AIS) have designed and finalized a platform with several ICT instruments for transparency over the budgets and expenditures of the local government units. During November 2015 – March 2016, work was focused on programing and implementing Money Mapping and a Monitoring Treasury Application. Both instruments are linked with well-structured data catalogues and contain information about the actual budgets, including expenditures for six municipalities for the two last years (2014-2016). The data are also accompanied by a group of articles, which analyze and visualize the real budgets of the municipalities for each of these two years. Everything is being done following the motto Open Governance as Good Governance in order to increase transparency, ensure well-structured information, and communication of the state institutions with the municipalities in creating means that help citizens in increasing their knowledge and encourage them to participate in the budgeting process.

The project also intends to enhance the capacities of the municipality staff members and civil actors in using ICT instruments for good governance and transparency.

Considering transparency a key to encouraging good and accountable governance, this project follows a model of technological innovation and strengthens citizens’ right to information. In both applications, information is made available in a format that is easy to find, understand, and reuse (open knowledge format). Users of such instruments include citizens and civil actors as well as representatives of the Citizens Advisory Panels, public administration members, and media representatives, who report on local government developments.

The applications on Money Mapping and Monitoring Treasury Transaction are already finalized and presented for the six model municipalities, partner local government units of PLGP: Fier, Lushnje, Korça, Elbasan, Berat, and Kuçova.

Municipality of Fier

PLGP – Harta e Parave (Money Mapping ) Fier

Municipality of Lushnja

PLGP – Harta e Parave (Money Mapping ) Lushnje

Municipality of Elbasan

PLGP – Harta e Parave (Money Mapping ) Elbasani

Municipality of Berat

Municipality of Kuçova

Municipality of Korça

Monitorim i Transaksioneve të Thesarit (Monitoring Treasury Application)

Open Local Government Procurement Albania at Data for Development Conference

11/06/2016/in Events, Homeposts /by admin

AIS Program, Open Procurement Albania (OpenLGP) was presented at a regional conference for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Data for Development Results 2016, held in Istanbul, Turkey, on 8 and 9 June. The project and its database designed as part of efforts made for ensuring that citizens are informed about public procurement and public contracts signed by the local government units in Albania. Its results and impact were addressed by a panel on How is Open Contracting Improving Budgetary Efficiency. Organizations from Euro-Asia and representatives from Open Contracting Partnership spoke at this panel about the benefits of contracting process and hitherto experiences. During the last year, AIS opened data about all tenders made in the first year of the 2015-2019 mandates of the 61 municipalities in the country. OpenLGP is financially supported by NED.

Open Contracting Standard, Government of Albania holds Consultations for Commitment

06/06/2016/in Events, Homeposts /by admin

Albania is a country with a significant lack of transparency when it comes to public contracts, be it through donations, concessions, PPPs, public works, or rents. AIS, as a member of the Albanian Coalition for OGP has asked the Government to commit to using Open Contracting Standards. The proposal was integrated in the plan of consultations for OGP 2016-2018. AIS is going to organize consultations with some representative thematic groups for finalizing the Action Plan by the month of June.

TransparencyCamp finally in Europe, something Albania could not miss

05/06/2016/in Events, Homeposts /by admin

An important unconference took place for the first time in Europe on June 1^st, the Transparency Camp Europe. The event took place in Amsterdam in the context of the Netherlands EU Presidency 2016. The participants in this TCampEU included representatives from the civil society in Albania, who became part of European experiences on open data, , and civil engagement. One of the TCampEU activities was the APP Competition, which came as a finalization of tens of events of a DiploHack nature in different cities of Europe. Albania was represented in this event by Alida Karakushi and Ergest Nako, members of the Love in Action team, winners of DiploHack Tirana.

Electoral Room for Electoral Reform – a lobbying project, an initiative of the civil society

04/06/2016/in Homeposts, Past Projects, Press Releases, Projects /by admin

AIS is now engaged in a new lobbying project in favor of as fair Electoral Code as possible. The name of the project is ‘The Electoral Room for Reform’, and it is an initiative of five organizations, supported by the Open Society Foundation for Albania OSFA.