by Kelmend Zajazi, NALAS Executive Director
The quality of life experienced by each and every citizen in urban and rural areas is by and large determined by the quality of public services, public infrastructure and public space created and managed by Municipalities. For NALAS, the EU4M is a model of a joint endeavour between the EU and the Local Government Associations to rapidly engage in renewing the public infrastructure and bring the EU standards close to citizens to experience them in their daily lives. Local Governments all across the European Union have been the engines to modernise the public service delivery and bring economic growth in their communities smartly using the EU funding support.
There is a reason why this EU support is so much needed and timely in Albania. Over the past two decades, local governments in Albania and throughout South-East Europe (SEE) have been facing significant challenges and opportunities. From one side, there is a growing demand and need from citizens for better infrastructure and services. On the other hand, our studies show that local governments in the region remain generally underfunded and are not provided with a fair share of available public financial resources.[1] Also, the level of local fiscal autonomy has been decreasing, in the background of a more general stagnation of local government finance reforms. The global COVID-19 pandemic promises to have long lasting effects on local government costs and revenues. If not reversed by additional policy measures, this tendence may continue and SEE local governments may lose up to 30% of their revenues compared to the pre-pandemic year 2019.[2] In short, the ability of local governments to perform their responsibilities and create better chances for their communities to thrive is severely hampered by the insufficient financial resources.
At the regional level, we also notice a growing gap in terms of infrastructure and services between neighbouring countries, in particular as regards EU accession candidate and EU member countries. This growing gap needs to be addressed as it is crucial for a balanced territorial development and integration and for social cohesion. We are very pleased to notice the increasing focus of the EU towards local governments in SEE. This is fundamental to address this growing gap between needs and opportunities and at the same time improve the life perspectives of SEE citizens in their local communities, and therefore tackle the brain-drain phenomena.
From this perspective, the EU for Municipalities Grant Scheme in Albania bears a major importance for local governments in Albania. It responds to the most direct needs of local communities and local governments in Albania. The grants will help municipalities implement their specific projects from their strategic development plans and improve local public sector infrastructure and therefore improve access to and quality of local public services. Looking to the longer term, the project will help strengthen municipal capacities in absorbing and managing EU funds. With the EU integration process, building municipal capacities is of crucial importance, considering the competitive nature of the funds. Municipalities that are successful in creating and strengthening their local capacities in EU fundraising and EU funds management will be able to be more successful in accessing funding and therefore improving local infrastructure and services, and therefore the life perspectives of their citizens.
We, at NALAS are very proud to be implementing the EU for Municipalities Grant Scheme in Albania, together with our members in Albania, the Association of Local Autonomy of Albania and the Association of Albanian Municipalities, and our partners Co-PLAN, Institute for Habitat Development and Eco Partners for Sustainable Development.
We congratulate the Albanian municipalities for their applications. Our team is proceeding with the evaluation of the proposals from an independent group of professional evaluators, including experts from the SEE region.
We take this opportunity to share that very soon we will launch the second call for applications, for investment grants of up to EUR 50.000 for municipalities.
[1] See NALAS Fiscal Decentralization Report, Eighth Edition, June 2021
[2] See NALAS Survey: South-East European Local Governments in Post COVID-19 Socio-Economic Recovery