External Assistance
Greater alignment of external assistance to the national strategic priorities and budgeting process is a key objective of the Albania Government’s new Integrated Planning System (IPS), adopted in November 2005 as a set of operating principles to ensure that government policy, planning and implementation take place in a coherent, efficient and integrated manner. The effectiveness of external assistance management has been a concern of the Government and donors operating in Albania for many years and attempts to address this have gone through cycles of institutional architecture and process improvements.
Government has been increasing ownership and its role in coordination of external assistance since the establishment in 2005 of the Department of Strategy and Donor Co-ordination (DSDC). DSDC central coordination role is to ensure organic links between external assistance main policy and financial processes of the government.
By coordinating the external assistance in Albania, DSDC provides a government point of contact and orientation for donors with respect to strategic matters as defined in the National Strategy for Development and Integration, thus strengthening government leadership in this process.
This orientation affects both the balance of assistance across sectors and the approach taken by external assistance within sectors, assists donors in programming their assistance and in defining and managing projects by ensuring that domestic investment and external assistance are coordinated.
DSDC develops familiarity with different donor programs and expertise with various external assistance instruments (e.g. grant vs. credit arrangements, pooled funding approaches) with a view to optimizing the match between government external assistance priorities and multi/bilateral donor programs/aid instruments.
Donor Technical Secretariat was established with the objective to facilitate a structured donor-to-donor and donor-government dialogue. The DTS, initially composed of four multi-lateral donors (EC, OSCE, UNDP, World Bank), is expanded since 2008 with two bi-lateral donors (Germany and the Netherlands), whose membership will be rotated annually. DTS and DSDC work closely in organizing joint events.
The DSDC is leading the design and development of two information systems in support of its multi-faceted mandate for strategic planning, policy analysis, monitoring, evaluation and donor coordination: the Integrated Planning System Information System (IPSIS) and the External Assistance Management Information System (EAMIS) linked with the MTBP and Treasury systems.
