Prime Minister Edi Rama meets with Tirana Agricultural University professors and students about the government-university partnership under the Pact for University commitments:

I really wanted to be here today, because I believe this is an important moment as we have finally fulfilled a long-standing demand from the university rector, but we have also addressed this University’s need for construction of a didactic farm. I am very pleased that we materialize this. In its most recent meeting, upon a request by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the government allocated a funding of EUR 1 million available to the University to start of this multi-interest enterprise and set up its own company, which all provide an optimal research and market link.

I am pleased that the University Rector remember very well the number of times I have visited this University over the past few years. This is the sixth time being convinced that this University holds a tremendous yet untapped potential and we should definitely make use of this potential, not only for better and more quality teaching of the students, but also for development of rural economy and the country’s agriculture, as it used to be in the past.

This university was once a centre of excellence and enjoyed international reputation for its top scientific and research level. The University today is going through a difficult revival stage following a long traumatic period, when the University’s library was not spared of arson fire. Let alone the University’s territory and assets that were either occupied or robbed, incurring additional costs to the University’s rebirth process due to the need to provide significant funding in order to reinstate the unjustly lost properties because of totally abusive and illegal legalization or property compensation processes.

It took almost three decades to start freeing the university in territorial terms. Fortunately, University officials and rectorate didn’t sit around passively, but instead they worked on a genuine masterplan, which indeed is a roadmap to transform this University into an authoritative agricultural and rural development policy planning and implementation centre.

We have been discussing this project during the meeting we had on this masterplan and things moved in the right direction thanks to student protests that gave a fresh and strong impetus to the process of interventions designed to transform the universities infrastructure.

The partnership process between the relevant ministries and universities according sectors of mutual interest is yielding first projects, which will be included in the funding program that the government has pledged to allocate in order to transform the country’s whole university space, which will become huge construction site with investments according to the needs we have jointly identified and based on the projects jointly developed and approved.

Today we are doing nothing but providing funding to support a concrete project under the Pact for the University, following the signing of the partnership agreement between the University and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Few days ago, some 373 excellent students comprised the first batch of students joining the public administration in a direct recruitment process, without going through the routine test procedures, but simply according to a merit-based system and 31 of them have been already hired in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development or other dependent institutions.

Employment of the best performing students is not just an employment campaign as it is the case of the first 373 hired students, but a long-term commitment under the Pact for the University. The second call for employment programme has been already launched. I believe you are well informed about the “Good Work” platform and we will continue to attract and integrate best university capacities in the public administration.

Another important commitment we have undertaken towards the Agricultural University of Tirana includes reconstruction and creating normal standards at student dormitories. We have inspected the student dormitories together with the Rector. We will make the necessary interventions in order to make sure that dormitories satisfy our ambitions for completely new university standards.

The EUR 1 million funding for the didactic farm paves the way for a long-term support process for the creation of the didactic training and demonstration infrastructure and the conduct of real-world practical training related to the economy and the market. This farm will also be a source of university income. Operating in a concrete area of activity, the Agricultural University should develop a model for others too, and that is the start of a profitable company that would include university professors and leading experts. The company should be set up in an area that should also serve as the ground for practical training, and training of the agriculture specialists for all experimental processes. We should also seek to include such a territory on the map of Tirana’s tourist attractions, turning it into an attractive area to local and foreign visitors alike.

This is one of the big dreams that come true and do not remain just that if you have the skills, capacities and willingness to pursue them. I am confident that this 130-hectare territory – and imagine that we are forced to allocate budget money for partial compensation for the occupiers with property ownership certificate – there can be built and I believe we will build an agritourism model that can provide all accommodating capacities and opportunities to host long-stay visitors. This would be translated into an income generation machinery for the university. The generated revenue will be reinvested to expand the didactic farm, in the teaching process, laboratories and practical training programs.

For first time last year, Albania’s agricultural exports were valued at around $ 300 million. Agricultural exports have doubled over the past 4 years, while we have also opened a new modest but essentially well-thought chapter of sustainable rural development through the 100 Villages Programme and what we need in this sector – and we are talking about the countryside and the rural economy – is know-how, a wholly new level of knowledge.

For the first time, we have accessed European Commission’s funding for the agricultural and rural development. Albania has today the largest funding volume earmarked for the agriculture, but it takes strong know-how and expertise to benefit the funding worth EUR 100 million and translate this funding in concrete investment. The European Union is not automated teller machine (ATM), but a body with great financial capacities, which gives way not a single penny if no credible and competitive project is presented. If we were to look at the list of benefits all member states have received from the EU, you would find that developed countries like Germany, Austria, France have also the largest fund absorbing capacities. While less developed countries have lower fund absorbing capacities. The portfolios are set since the very beginning. A certain amount of funding is made available to each country, but this amount is not disbursed if that country lacks the capacity to present convincing projects. Which means that countries are distinguished not on the basis of what they possess, but on what they know and based on what you know is then defined what you really possess.

I have reiterated and I won’t be tired of doing so, because I believe it is a very significant example to illustrate what it means to know and not to know. Albania’s is Europe’s second richest country in water resources after Norway and water management has been always one of the serious problems facing the country since the collapse of the previous regime. Abundant water and constant flooding, whereas facing drinking and irrigation water shortage.

Israel is a country with scarce water, yet it has the most advanced water supply and irrigation systems on the planet thanks to the know-how. They invested in know-how and such an it certainly takes time to reap benefits from such investments, yet it is the only way to take our country’s economy and agriculture to another level.

The lack of investment in know-how for such a long period of time and creation of a system of illusions and lies through completely ridiculous and corrupt teaching processes for years has led to shortage of experts and dramatically sluggish development we could have over the past 30 years should we had rushed years ago to do what we have embarked on step by step today.

However, it is needles to mourn what is already gone and instead we should focus on what we have today and what we expect to accomplish in the future.

Today is a good day for university, it is a good day for Albanian agriculture, it is a good day for rural development, because we sowing the seed of a new long-awaited and necessary development for scientific research in this university that will definitely take agriculture and rural development in Albania to another level.

I am delighted that you all and other contributors or Agricultural University students are experiencing this achievement. Now it is nothing left, but each of us doing our part in this project and sooner rather than later we will see the initial results.

Concluding I would like to reiterate that for me it is extremely important that the didactic farm is becoming a reality today thanks to the students protest and the great impetus they gave this process, putting it high on the government’s agenda for the university. After all, this is the beauty of living in a democracy and the thing that makes democracy the best of all system that world has lived in to date, because the government doesn’t know everything. By listening to one another and supporting each other, as you can see, we can do things that otherwise, as they were postponed to 30 years, could have been delayed for another 30 years.

Thank you!