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The International Republican Institute (IRI) has conducted democracy assistance programs in Albania since 1991, focusing on training for new parliamentarians and their staff, campaign training for newly-formed political parties, constitutional reform, and several projects aimed at supporting the development of Albania’s electoral system.
IRI monitored national elections in 1992, 1996 and 1997. After social upheaval in 1996 and 1997 set back the country’s democratic process, IRI narrowed the scope of its program, to work with the parliament and local nongovernmental organizations (NGO). IRI’s current program focuses on enfranchising persons with disabilities and engaging them in the political process. Since 2006, IRI has worked with disability NGOs within Albania to build up a program focusing on promoting the rights of the disabled and enshrining them within the political framework.
In October 2006, IRI and the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) conducted an assessment mission to Albania to identify the needs of people with disabilities. As part of the mission, IRI met with local disability NGOs to establish program partnerships and discuss the most pressing concerns within the disability community. During the mission, IRI and IFES also worked with disability advocates to develop a broad-based agenda targeting the 2007 local elections and beyond.
Following the assessment mission, IRI assisted its local program partners and disability NGOs develop a platform as a way of bringing greater attention to disability issues during the upcoming campaign. The resulting Platform for the Disabled was unveiled at a formal launch ceremony in Tirana on December 7, 2006.
Building upon this momentum, disability advocates, with IRI support, embarked upon an awareness campaign for the 2007 local elections, using the Platform for the Disabled as a way to incorporate disability issues into the political platforms of major candidates for political office.
For the February 19, 2007, local elections, IRI’s partners organized an election observation effort in Tirana, Shkodra and Librazhd. The observation mission followed several weeks of intensive lobbying and meetings with political officials and candidates about the Platform for Disabilities both in Tirana and in the target cities.
The findings of the observation mission included: low participation of persons with disabilities in the voting process, roughly two percent of those registered voted; limited knowledge and insufficient training on the part of commission members on how to handle cases of disabled persons showing up to vote; more than half of voting centers observed lacked ramps or elevators; statistical information on registration and identification of persons with disabilities was largely missing.
For much of 2008, until the program’s successful conclusion, IRI conducted trainings to teach lobbying and advocacy skills to local NGO partners. The trainings were designed to provide concrete skills that would enable advocates to successfully promote the Platform for the Disabled.
IRI now plans to launch a new program building on the recent success of its work with organizations representing the disabled. With parliamentary elections scheduled for June 2009 IRI will work with its existing network of disability advocates to help them lobby for their agenda before the newly established Parliamentary Committee for Electoral Reform.
IRI also plans to help the Parliamentary Center, an NGO that focuses on encouraging public understanding and debate on the Albanian legislation, strengthen its role as a watchdog of parliament. By enabling the center to carry out parliamentary monitoring projects such as tracking the voting history of each member, and the publication of a parliamentary guide the institution will become more open and more accountable to the public.
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