State-of-play of Managing

Authority in Albania

Grigor Gjeci – Head of the MA

May 27th , 2015

Structure of the Managing

Authorities

Secretary General

Directory of Programingand Evaluation of Rural

Policies

MA

Sector of programming Sector of Monitoring,

Coordination and Publicity

Measures

IPARD II programme will be adopted in June 2015 by the IPA Management Committee as a first step in the entrustment process. The IPARD II will start with the following measures:

Package 1

– Investments in physical assets of agricultural holdings;

– Investments in physical assets concerning processing and marketing of agricultural and fishery products;

– Farm diversification and business development;

– Technical assistance

Measures (2)

It is planned to start additional measures later

during the IPARD II implementation

Package 2

– Advisory services;

– Preparation and implementation of local

development strategies – Leader approach;

– Agri-environment – climate and organic farming

IPARD II MC – Establishment and

Representation According to the article 53 of the FWA Monitoring

Committee should be Established at latest 6 months after

entering in force of the first Financial Agreement.

Based on Stakeholder analyses conducted by the MA, a

balanced participation between the government bodies and

non governmental, environment and social-economic

partner is proposed

Draft structure of the IPARD II MC has been prepared and

discussed within the MARDWA and is ready to be sent to

DG Agri for consultation

Rules of procedure of MC have been drafted following DG

Agri templates

Establishment of the IPARD II

Monitoring CommitteeThe following organizations will be invited to be members of the IPARD II MC:

1.Public authorities and bodies -

Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Water Administration (MARDWA) – MA, IPARD

Agency, sectoral directorates, extension services;

Line Ministries – Ministry of European Integration (NIPAC), Ministry of Finance (NAO/NF), Ministry

of Environment, Ministry of Social Welfare and Youth, Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and

Entrepreneurship, Ministry of Urban Development and Tourism, Ministry of Local Government,

Institute of Statistics.

Regional and local authorities – represented by the Association of Albanian Municipalities.

Non-Governmental organisations in the in the field of agriculture and rural development, Branch

associations in food processing industry, Albanian Tourism Association, Albanian Women

Association, Union of Farmers Associations in Albania, etc.

Bilateral and multilateral donor organisations, such as the World Bank, UNDP, USAID, GIZ,

Italian Development Cooperation Office, etc.

Other partners, such as Commercial Banks and micro-finance institutions, academic and research

institutions, etc.

Chairperson – Minister of MARDWA

Representatives of the Commission, Operating structure, NIPAC and NAO – participate in

advisory capacity

Number of the NGO at least equal to the number of the representatives of the state institutions with

voting right

List of Eligible Expenditure

LEE for the measure “Investments in physical

assets of agricultural holdings” and LEE for

“Investments in physical assets concerning

processing and marketing of agricultural and

fishery products”; are prepared and agreed with

the IPARD Agency. The drafts will be sent to DG

Agri for consultation.

LEE for “Farm diversification and business

development”, is under preparation.

MA Manuals of Procedures

Manuals of Procedures(General manual

and Operating Manual) are in process of

revision and will be finalised in June 2015;

NAO and other decentralised structures are

in the process of filling additional posts;

Self-assessment process is planned

Submission of documents for entrusting

budget implementation tasks (September

2015);

Use of Technical Assistance

measure Preparation of preliminary accreditation documents for

implementation of the measure for TA such as:

Defining of suitable approach for implementation of TA

measure;

Preparation of draft Manual of procedure for TA measure

including appropriate control documents such as

Checklists for TA;

Preparation of draft Working registers for recording all

relevant data regarding implementation of TA (number of

calls, contracts signed and payments executed etc.)

Use of Technical Assistance

measure

Propose necessary legal ground for regulating the relations

between MA and PA (draft MoU) for implementation of TA

measure;

Preparation of draft Guideline for TA measure;

Recommendations for further necessary steps to be

undertaken for accreditation of TA measure;

Necessary provisions update of MoU between PA and MA

to integrate the requirements for implementation of TA

measure;

Capability of advisory services to

advice on IPARD

The extension service is organised and managed by

MARDWA;

Extension service provides information, advice and

training to farmers and agri-business;

Five Agricultural Technology Transfer Centres (ATTC)

are set up, responsible for conducting applied research in

various fields of agriculture;

Main problems faced by the public Extension services

are:

– the limited number of extension specialists and their engagement

with a lot of tasks outside their specific field;

Capability of advisory services

to advice on IPARD– the insufficient financial support in agricultural

information centres to accomplish the extension

activities;

– high average age of extension specialists and their

limited IT skills;

– limited capacities in farm management, marketing and

business planning, and in providing support and

technical assistance to off-farm subsectors (i.e.

processors, wholesalers, retailers);

– low/insufficient outreach, especially in

mountainous/remote areas;

– limited knowledge of the functioning of value chains

(from production to marketing

Access to funds for private co-

financing The banking sector dominates the financial sector in

Albania and accounts for 97% of the financial system

assets.

Banks are the main players in channelling funds from

lenders to borrowers.

Currently all banks are private and predominantly foreign-

owned. The banking sector in Albania is dominated by five

large banks.

The supply of bank credit to agriculture is constrained by

structural problems of the sector including small size of

farms, ageing of farm population which makes long term

loans more risky, lack of assets to be offered as collateral,

underdeveloped land market, lack of information regarding

the applicants financial standing, etc

Access to funds for private co-

financing

In addition to the local banks and branches

of foreign banks, there were 134 saving and

credit associations and 2 unions of saving

and credit associations, and 9 non-bank

institutions licensed by the Bank of Albania.

Microfinance institutions have expanded into

both rural and urban markets.

Concluding Mo U between the MA

and PA and NAO

Memorandum of Understanding between

the NAO/national fund and the Management

Authority( including attached guidelines,

template documents and / reports, timelines

etc);

Memorandum of Understanding between

the Paying Agency the Management

Authority( including attached guidelines,

template documents and /reports, timelines

etc)

Preparation for the calls

The Managing Authority, in agreement with the IPARD

Agency, shall each year draw up an Annual Work

Programme of Calls for applications (AWP),

indicating the number of calls, time for launching and

deadlines for submission of applications of each call,

Drafting the indicative budget of each measure under each

call for applications

Monitoring systems

Programme monitoring aims to ensure the effectiveness

and the quality of the implementation;

The progress, efficiency and effectiveness of the IPARD II

programme shall be measured by the indicators;

presented in the Programme for the baseline situation,

inputs/financial execution, outputs and immediate results

of the operations;

The data on monitoring indicators will be collected by the

IPARD Agency and inserted into the Management

Information System (MIS);

MA will collect, aggregate and analyse information / data

on indicators, received from the IPARD Agency, report

and provide for follow-up actions.

Other current points of priority

The accreditation of the TA measure is of higher

importance for the proper implementation of the

programme.

On the other hand, the accreditation process of this

measure in the period 2007-2013 took a long period and

only few countries were successful.

There is a need of strong guidance on behalf of DG Agri for

the accreditation process of this measure by issuing

guidelines, templates documents etc and by providing

proper training.

Thank you for your attention!