Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at meeting with mayors on the‘100 Villages’ program:

Good afternoon everyone!

Welcome!

The today’s meeting takes place as part of the process under the ‘100 villages’ program. At the core of this program lies the necessity to coordinate entire forces and development interventions with a view to setting an exemplary rural development model. Promotion of agritourism and mountain tourism villages lie at the project’s centre of gravity, taking into account the fact that a certain number of villages across the country have been identified and selected to concretely promote as much as possible the idea of a sustainable fight against poverty, unemployment and isolation due to their geographical distance and remoteness and lack of potential for development of large-scale farming and agriculture. The goal is clear and that is combining all funding, the institutional forces and operators on the ground in order to provide a plethora of development opportunities to the individuals and households living in rural Albania.

Upgrading the infrastructure is an essential aspect of the program, but it would be totally wrong if the project was to be conceived or perceived merely as an infrastructure development project, because the investment in rural roads over the past 20 plus years have failed to substantially change the form and progress of rural development, or the form and progress of rural households across the country. Saying this I don’t mean the villages and rural areas where agriculture is thriving growing enough farm produce for the domestic market and export, but I am talking about rural areas where development of large-scale agriculture is impossible, but yet where we can already find initial clear and concrete examples of successful individual initiatives, which show that agritourism offers great potential to move from a survival stage to development.

So upgrading the infrastructure is a key element just like it is the harmonization of efforts between local and central government, the Agricultural and Rural Development Agency, and the Ministry of Agriculture in this care, to promote economic development through the instruments the village support program provides and schemes that are clearly focused on agritourism, be they either national schemes or European Union schemes.

An important aspect of this program is also the combination of tourist and agritourism potentials, the cultural and historic heritage and natural beauties, making them all accessible to tourists.

We have already made some important organizational steps, either in terms of the internal organization, with 4 ministries being directly involved in this program and with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development leading the efforts under this project. Meanwhile a national program coordinator has also been named. The Albanian Development Fund, the Agricultural and Rural Development Agency, and the National Territorial Planning Agency have been also involved in the program, which will also see the participation and involvement of international donors together with all foreign missions in Albania which are committed to directly contributing to the project and the last, but not the least, we have also established a number of contacts with the domestic entrepreneurship and banks to create a complete synergy among all forces and stakeholders who can join this process.

The ‘100 Villages’ academy has been established, a structure which will assist the program as well as the local government units to address the shortcomings many municipalities across the country face in terms of planning and projecting. The academy will include the contribution from local and foreign urban planning experts, professors and students, as well as the Agricultural University of Tirana and the Faculty of Economics, which will help by devising specific development programs too.

Another important aspect of the project is that about enhancing human capacities through training and raising awareness among the youth in particular over the economic development potential and households wellbeing through modest investment in agritourism projects, which will enjoy the government support. To this end, the Ministry of Finance and Economy, not only as the ministry managing the public money, but also as the department in charge of the employment and labour policies, has been also involved in this program.

Your support in your capacity as mayors is indispensable, either to share all existing development plans with the central government representatives, or to jointly identify human resources and potential in each territory and jointly develop a project under this program, which has to do with raising awareness among the emigrants who have left their villages, but are definitely interested in exploring investment potentials in their villages and their parent’s home since there is no doubt that investing the emigrants’ savings in such projects would earn them a higher profit rate rather than they would earn from the daily work as emigrant. Of course it would be pointless for them to give up work in the countries where they live and blindly return home, but it is all about encouraging them to invest their savings under this project where everyone will make his or her own profits.

Worth of noting in order to point out how far the municipalities are from thisrural and countryside transformation process is the fact that the contribution of the municipalities throughout the process of applications for agricultural support schemes has been minimal, either for the fact that we have been forced to relaunch the call for agritourism projects as a result of the lack of projects. We have made available a substantial amount of state budget money to provide direct co-funding ranging from five to 100 million lek to support agritourism projects. The funding is not a loan but a grant money the government provides to support such projects. The number of applications and projects we have received to date has been 10 times smaller than the number of municipalities across the country. This is incomprehensible and unjustifiable and shows how far the new municipalities are still from placing attention towards the village and rural areas. It is sad to hear the mayors insisting on road projects only whenever speaking about rural development.

Building road infrastructure is imperative, but the opportunities to invest in rural road projects are limited. While there are many other elements that can go in parallel and there are many concrete cases that although the road infrastructure may not be in a satisfactory state, investing in agritourism can lead to success. I have personally witnessed a concrete case in the area of Këlcyra, a region where no one would cross his mind to travel to because of the poor infrastructure, but it is home to fabulous beauty where a young family has set up an agribusiness which is highly frequented.

Families living in such realities cannot absolutely imagine growing farm produce for the local market, let alone for export. Instead, such households can opt for solutions and investments in developing agribusiness structures to attract others visit them right to their own homes.

Providing healthcare and education services is part of the program with a series of projects to reconstruct and make the existing healthcare centres fully operational or build new ones. A preliminary assessment has been already made in the 100 selected villages and it is completely possible to ensure full healthcare and educational service there.

The idea is not only to upgrade and improve these 100 villages and not to invest everything in these 100 villages, since there are thousands of other villages across Albania, but develop functioning models that would show the path towards development and expand it elsewhere all over the country. If we are to build successful economic development models for the households in the countryside thanks to this program I am pretty confident that local residents won’t wait us to encourage and support them, but they will be motivated to keep on going along this path.

In autumn we will launch the EU-funded financial support with a funding of 11 million euros earmarked for the households and individuals planning to invest in agritourism projects. Each reliable application will receive grant money. However, the main risk is that the funding may not be disbursed because no reliable applications and projects have been submitted. Therefore, your cooperation with the central government and all stakeholders involved in this framework is indispensable, because it is understandable you do not have all the human resources capable of doing this from the beginning to the end but for this reason, this program is also in order to help you in this regard.

A closer cooperation is also needed in the concerted efforts to address the issue of urban waste in the countryside. This is a serious problem that has been already tackled in certain hotspots across Albania, but there are still many others to be addressed and removed from the map.

In order to spare you the trouble of loafing around and the chaos of communication and information you will have a single address, that of the National Coordinator and then all aforementioned structures at the Ministry of Agriculture and other relevant ministries, and the Albanian Development Fund, the Agricultural and Rural Development Agency and the Territory Planning Agency in particular will be all available to you.

I would like to see the ‘100 Villages’ academy and its teams enjoy your full support during this process, because specialist groups will join to work together with you on developing the necessary plans and projects. No financial burden will be placed on the municipalities and other local government units. The local government authorities should demonstrate their readiness and provide direct support for the competent urban planning the territory management experts in order to convey and materialize the vision, ideas and the required information.