ALBANIA: Civil Society Far from Local Needs

By Zoltán Dujisin Reprint | | Print |

Zoltán Dujisin

TIRANA, Aug 29 2007 (IPS) - Achieving environmentally sustainable tourism in Albania will also be up to the efforts of communities and civil society organisations, but as in much of the post-socialist world, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and their donors will have to clean up their act first.

The dependence on foreign donors and philanthropists is still causing Albanian civic organizations to respond more to donor requests than to the local needs they supposedly represent.

Organisations fostering civil society development are powerful actors in Albania, and have been central in promoting democratisation in the formerly communist country.

Donors are often accused by local civic organisations of being inflexible, withholding vital information on common projects and of putting forward abstract guidelines which are not based on any study of local conditions and needs.

"Morally civic organizations should represent those who they claim to represent, but legally they are obliged towards the donors, so I think donors should be more responsible," Auron Tare, director of the Albanian National Trust told IPS.

But not everything can be expected from donors. "If local Albanians themselves don&#39t engage in protecting the coastline and the environment, whatever donors do, it&#39s not going to happen," says Tare. "They have their own interests, and these are never purely altruistic."

The lack of altruism is also pervasive among activists themselves. "Mostly NGOs here are opportunistic, not specialised, and they will chew on whatever is thrown at them in terms of funding," Arian Gace, national coordinator for the Global Environment Facility (GEF) small grants programme told IPS.

Working for an NGO often means access to higher living standards than the rest of the population, and access to Western goods or visas in a country that up until recently had little contact with the outside world.

While acknowledging that Albania is living under a "very hard capitalism" similar to that of "150 years ago in America", Tare is even more critical of the NGOs&#39 raison d&#39être. "Everybody makes an NGO because that&#39s a way of making money out of Westerners. And Westerners want to work with NGOS. This creates another East-West world of corruption."

Tare describes NGO work as "just a way of doing a lot of paperwork, seminars, workshops, but nothing on the ground." Asked if he could pinpoint any concrete achievements by NGOs, he said, "I don&#39t know of any yet."

Representatives of NGOs, however, disagree. Xhemal Mato, executive director of the Ecomovement Centre, says there is truth to some of the accusations, but explains difficulties faced by well-intentioned activists in Albania.

"We are only given money for meetings and seminars, not for starting something concrete," Mato told IPS. "It is very important to be able to find funds to raise awareness on challenges such as Illegal building in the coast or building without consideration to environmental needs."

With donors seeing the primary goal of democratisation as having been partly achieved, funds have started to dwindle, and competition from the many Albanian NGOs for the little available funding is stiffening.

"Donors are not as abundant as at the beginning of democratisation, and there is very big competition," says Mato. "Now that the political aspect is over, donors feel governments should continue doing the job."

Even with poor funding, Mato believes something has been achieved. "You have some concrete examples in which you can say that without NGOS some problems could not be solved," he says. One such example, he says, is environmental NGOS pushing the municipality of Tirana to raise its waste treatment standards.

Other important projects promoted by NGOs, such as an awareness campaign in eco-tourism, remain only on paper as the organisations struggle to obtain government support.

Unfortunately for Mato, his group and other NGOs feel the government is not on their side precisely as a result of one of their positive functions. "Because we frequently are a second voice for journalists in contradicting the government, the government doesn&#39t really like NGOs."

Others think environmental groups in Albania have not achieved enough from lack of experience in negotiating and reaching compromises.

"Albania is not in a position to make great sacrifices to save the environment, and we have to make the most we can from what we have," Gace told IPS. "Part of the coast will have to be sacrificed and other parts protected as part of a sort of social pact."

This is what Gace feels environmental groups have not yet grasped. "The NGO community would have gotten much more if they would come to the table with options and be ready to actually bargain, because otherwise the other part will make a decision anyway," he said. "I&#39ve seen them reacting too much emotionally, they&#39ve been saying we&#39ll protect everything, everywhere, all the time."