Jora Risto announced as e-Participation Ambassador for Albania

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:

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Money, Government and Politics, program was presented at TransparencyCamp 2015

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.21467007616_118e3bafb9_z11904745_803691196415248_4773339988850003457_n21467012106_74626e5dc5_m  20870624514_365ca288e2_m 21305549988_c52750b69f_m 20870527154_c53ed9372d_m 21482181062_a6dd906867_m

 

Money, Government & Politics

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.

Open Corporates / Business Companies

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 & Politics

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.

Broshura e rrjetit Unite-IT në gjuhën Shqipe

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:

UniteIT_2_brochure_ALB

Joint Declaration of the Members of the Electoral Room regarding the Administration of the Electoral Process

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.

e – Participation day event in Albania

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.

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Make Elections Count

The ZA’LART 2015 project will enable the civil monitoring of, and reporting on, the electoral process of 21st of June. The program slogan is Make Elections Count and it aims at encouraging citizens to be critical and denounce problems that damage the elections! ZA’LART works as a web and app mobile, inviting citizens to monitor and report any problems and abuse they see in relation with the electoral process in real time. Reporting is easily applied within a few seconds, preserving the citizens’ anonymity. Every report or denouncement shall be crosschecked by the Ad-Hoc Editorial Team composed of local journalists and volunteers trained for fair elections and democratic culture.

We invite you to follow us and join reporting on ZA’LART 2015 platform through Web, App Mobile, FB: ZA’LART – Raised Voices Albania (community), Twitter ZA’LART@ZaLartAlbania; and You Tube.

The ZA’LART Team is open to cooperate with the institutions, civil organizations and networks operating on monitoring and electoral culture. Anyone interested in being updated about citizens’ reports made on this platform, may register on the Merr Sinjal (Receive Notification) section, selecting the area or the category of violations, in which he or she is interested. All citizens’ reports shall be published and available on the map of ZA’LART platform (70 reports made one week ahead of the campaign).

ZA’LART is also being conducted in the framework of the civil society initiative to coordinate fair elections 2015 – Election Situation Room. Everything is being done with the contribution of the citizens, moderated by the Albanian Institute of Science (AIS), with the financial support of the Open Society Foundation for Albania (OSFA) and the Democracy Commission Small Grants Program of the US Embassy in Tirana. Its opinions, findings, and recommendations are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent those of its Financial Supporters.

You may contact us at any time, and are welcome to actively join ZA’LART !

Thank you!

ZA’LART 2015 Team

The Right to Information on Electoral Financing and Media

Training for Journalist: The Right to Information on Electoral Financing Entities

AIS as a promoter of Open Data Albania, with the wish in enhancing civil society-media partnership, held on May 9, 2015 in Tirana the training entitled: The Right to Information on Election Financing entities. Part of the Money, Governments and Politics project. Journalists and civil activists have an important role in the process of transparency of Election Financing, a right clearly determined by Constitution. The training aimed to enable media representatives and increase legal knowledge on electoral funding. During the event discussion raised problems encountered by legal experts, analysts, political and investigative journalists, on financing of political parties and candidates, the electoral law and electoral expenditure.

Program as follows:

▪ 09:30 – 10:00    Welcome & Registration on participants: Besjana HYSA Program Coordinator and Aurora SULCE Moderator.

▪ 10:00 – 11.00 Viktor GUMI, Legal Expert. Overview of Political Parties and candidates financed

Question and Comments regarding Legal predictions and general issues of entity financing

▪ 11:00 – 11:20    Olta BEGU, Analyst for Open Data Albania. Open Data about electoral source of funds. Illustrations from Electoral Spending Albania.

▪ 11:20 – 12:00    Questions and Discussions: The right to information on electoral financing entities. Law and Practice

▪ 12:00 – 12: 20    Aranita BRAHAJ – Transparency through Data, Novelty 2015 via MG&Politics program

▪ 12:20 – 12:40    Conclusions Aurora Sulce – Journalist role in fostering transparency, Olta Begu –Institutional competence in auditing and control

Data about registered journalists

  • Gender Ratio: 8 men, 22 women, 24 Media agencies represented.
  • 83% of participant were journalist with more than 7 years’ experience in media
  • 15 of participants works on Visual Media, 1 in Radio, 10 in newspapers, 3 on news agency and 1 in a press office.
  • 5 journalist were representatives of National Television
  • Registered participants representatives of Radio, TV and Public Information Agencies
  • Registered participants, journalists from newspaper of the two most important political parties, Rilindja Demokratike and Zëri i Popullit.

Spokesperson of the Central Election Commission was also present at the training with journalist

 


Training Modules:

OPEN DATA FOR ELECTORAL FINANCING

POLITICAL PARTIES FINANCING


Participants in the Training

NAME SURNAME MEDIA
Adriatik DOCI Gazeta SOT
Albana QIRJAKO RTV SCAN
Alma DEMIRAJ Top-Channel
Almarina GEGVATAJ ATSH
Anila HOXHAJ Top Channel
Anisa XHANI Gazeta “Tema”
Aristir LUMEZI Gazeta PANORAMA
Arlinda GJONAJ ATSH
Aurora SULCE Tv “Ora News”
Aurora MURA Zëri i Popullit
Bledar HOTI Gazeta SHQIP
Bledian KOKA News 24
Brahim SHIMA News 24
Darina TANUSHI Gazeta Shqiptare
Dashamir BICAKU A1 Report
Drilona HOXHAJ KQZ
Drita COKAJ RD
Elda PEPA TVSH
Entela DURAJ KosovaPress
Erald HOXHA ShqipëriaCom
Erion TODHE Tv Klan
Eriselda Martini Albanian Screen TV
FATION BINJAKU Gazeta Panorama
Fejzi BRAUSHI MAPO
Keti BANUSHI Vizionplus
Luis TANUSHI Dita
Luljeta PROGNI Illyria
Merita HAKLAJ ABC News
Rrapo MEHMETAJ
Suela TOPI Gazeta “Shekulli”
Violeta SHQALSI SCAN TV