Open Governance – Good Governance
USAID/Albania and PLGP, in collaboration with the Albanian Institute of Science (AIS), has launched an “Open Governance as Good Governance” initiative. This initiative will draw upon the AIS project experience to make model municipalities’ budgets more transparent by publishing municipal finance information using an Open Data format.
Our organization AIS on 10th of October, 2015 at 10.30 am held a workshop with journalists involved in the Open Spending Initiative. Open Spending Initiative consist in creating a Network of affirmed local journalists, engaged in informing the public on expenditures of budgetary institutions in Albania.
The workshop presented instruments and well-structured data which increase the level of information and citizens monitoring of finances and public assets. Open and linked data create a space for controlling and minimizing the cases of abuse, conflict of interest and nepotism. The event was organized in the framework of Money, Government and Politics.
Program :
10:30 – 11:00
Aranita Brahaj
Executive Director (AIS)
Data on Open Corporates Albania, Control of Conflict of Interest
11.00 – 11.25
Leonard BAKIPLLARI
Investigative Journalist MAPO and Albanian Association of the Journalist for Justice (SHGD)
Declaration of Assets of High Level officials, Investigation of Wealth Sources
11:25 – 11:45
Shefiko HAJNA
Open Spending Albania
Treasury Monitoring, Citizens control over Public Spending
11:45 – 12:05
Blerta TUCI, AIS
Employers Taxation, Tax Calculator (Daily Bread) as an instrument that provide citizens with public services
12:10 – 12:30
Besjana HYSA, AIS
Linked Data on Public Spending and Declaration of Assets of Senior officials
12: 35- 12: 55
Questions and Discussions
Indicators about the participants:
Journalist engaged in Tirana and Local Media: 14 /11
Gender Ratio: Men: 11, Women: 14
Years of experience in the media: 7+ years: 17, 5-7 years: 4, 3-5 years: 3, 0-3 years: 1
Participants in the workshop: 25
Total registered: 30
List of registered journalists:
e- Participation awards on 8th of December at the European Parliament in Brussels
Albanian Institute of Science as a member of the Telecenter Europe Network within the e-UROPA project during May–September 2015 organized the online competition “My e-participation Story”. The competition aimed the collection of the most significant stories related to the use of e-participation solutions that raised awareness among the young generation on a social problematic. Twelve winners were announced simultaneously in twelve countries. Awards will be given on 8th of December 2015 at the European Parliament in Brussels. The best compelled story from Albania is submitted by Jora Risto student at the Faculty of Medicine in Tirana. The story is titled “The Albanian November Students” and refers to the civic engagement and protest against the dismantling of Syrian chemical weapons in Albania. There were six stories submitted at the national level that dealt with migration and free movement issues. Furthermore, the winner was evaluated during the annual conference of Telecenter Europe which took place on 24-25th of September. The awarded story will be published in a brochure together with 11 stories from the other European participant countries at the website of Europa Participation. This competition was realized as part of the Europe for Citizens Programme of the European Union.
Read the story here: Albanian November Students
Video:
Pictures from the protest:
September 11-12, Washington DC
Even this year our organization AIS was part of TransparencyCamp 2015 an “unconference” for OpenGov, organized by Sunlight Foundation. Each year the event gather hundreds of people to share their knowledge on the way of using new technologies and policies in making governments more accountable towards their citizens
AIS representative Besjana HYSA engaged in the process by presenting our most prominent program in matters of transparency and accountability Money, Government and Politics. She introduced the attendees with the results and impact of the program, the innovative datasets implemented and the cases of conflict of interest revealed.
Money, Government and Politics project and its activities address issues of abuse, corruption, and conflict of interest in the context of governance and politics in Albania. The program aims at opening data about the wealth of high state officials, expenditures of state institutions, electoral spending and expenditures of the concessionary corporate. Comparison and analysis of such data increases transparency, accountability and public pressure in cases of favoritism, embezzlement of public funds or assets.
This project aims at opening data about business companies operating in the country. Through the Business Companies application, anyone may easily find and use data including the name of a company, its tax number (NIPT), year of establishment and its legal status. Additionally, the annual profit is published for each registered company, along with the type of ownership (i.e. public or private) and the financial transactions from the State Treasury (through a URL link). Special attention is paid to the concessionary companies that exploit public assets. Accordingly, the project will publish the standard open data, the value of their concessionary costs, and the legal ground of the contract signed between the Albanian Government and the respective concessionary companies. Through this project, AIS intends to contribute to the evolution of open data catalogue and culture in Albania by supporting stakeholders who are in search of data for research or business purposes.
Money, Government and Politics project and its activities address issues of abuse, corruption, and conflict of interest in the context of governance and politics in Albania. The program opens up and well-structures data about the wealth of high state officials, and expenditures of state institutions, concessionary corporates, and electoral spending.This process enables to track cases of nepotism, embezzlement, and conflict of interest. Access to such data increases transparency, accountability and public pressure in cases of favoritism, and embezzlement of public funds or assets.
Unite-IT është rrjet joformal i përfshirjes dixhitale të profesionistëve (mësuesit dhe trajnerët, ekspertët, mjekët, biznesi, hartuesit e politikave, akademikë) që synojnë bashkimin e Evropës përmes Fuqizimit dixhital. Unite-IT krijon një hapësirë bashkëpunimi për anëtarët e saj që të angazhohen në mënyrë të hapur dialogu, ndajnë përvoja dhe burime ndërtojnë kontakte mes njëri-tjetrin dhe të krijojnë partneritete.
Kjo do të rrisë kapacitetet e tyre dhe ngritjen e vetëdijes në mesin e shoqërisë në lidhje me potencialet parealizuara të kompetencave dixhitale për përfshirje ekonomike dhe sociale.
Broshurën me informacion më të detajuar për Unite-IT e gjeni si më poshtë:
The Electoral Room has been monitoring the electoral process through its members, the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections and the Albanian Institute for Political Studies, and shall continue to monitor the ballot counting process. It has cooperated with the citizens through the online portal ZALART.al to ensure a due electoral process.
The fact that hundreds of citizens all over Albania have responded to the appeal for reporting every violation they encounter to the zalart.al portal is good news and shows the citizens’ commitment to free and fair elections.
The voting process was generally conducted among a normal situation of public law and order. The performance of the State Police is considered to have been in compliance with the electoral law.
We also appreciate the very important role being played by the media through a minute-after-minute coverage of the electoral situation all over the country.
While limited when compared with previous elections, the public appearances of the political parties on the voting day have broken the electoral silence. In addition, there have been cases of candidates, Members of Parliament and other political representatives seen in the voting centers and in their vicinity in contradiction with the law. It was also observed that the Voting Centre Commissions have not taken any measures to make sure that there is no propaganda materials posted within a distance of 150 meters from the Voting Centers, as the law requires. Such cases were reported from several cities.
Due to delays in the distribution of the electoral materials and the absence of commissioners, the opening of the voting process was delayed in some Voting Centers, or was done without all the members of the commissions being present.
In some cases, it was also observed that people with disabilities were not always provided with the necessary facilities required by the law for enabling them to freely exercise their right to vote.
In several cases, the inadequate professional training of the Voting Centre Commissioners has allowed for some voters to photograph their ballot papers and post them on the social networks. Such a behavior creates room for vote buying and selling, and for a distortion of the voters’ will.
In some Voting Centers in Durres, Kavaja, and Vora, there were attempts to stop voters from voting even though their names were on the voter lists.
So far, the Albanian voters have calmly expressed their will on the ballot boxes. The Members of the Electoral Room urge for every ballot to be counted correctly and for voters’ voice to be heard by the parties in the process.
The founding members of the Electoral Room:
Urge for a good administration of the ballot papers and electoral materials.
Urge the political parties to demonstrate their will for their commissioners to implement the electoral law on the counting, validation, and calculation of the electoral results.
Urge the electoral administration, and particularly the counting teams, to strictly meet the law requirements.
Reiterate their position that every observed violation of the law should be investigated by the law enforcement agencies.
The Electoral Room shall, through the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections continue to monitor the counting process step by step in all the 90 counting centers.
In the framework of e-Participation Day, Albanian Institute of Science in cooperation with Telecenter-Europe, organized in May 7, 2015 a training with youth from high schools of Tirana, conducted under the Europe for Citizens Program in eleven European countries aiming to educate and involve citizens in policy-making through ICT instruments. Also, during the event took place the launch of the competition “My e-Participation Story”, an initiative that invites citizens to write an essay or tell a story/based in a life experience in one of the EU countries.
