13 July 2012 – Tirana International Hotel

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) from rural and remote areas from Lezha, Elbasan, Berat and Gjirokastra qarks presented their ideas and initiatives empowering civil society in rural and remote areas at the Fair of Ideas “Good Governance and active citizenry”. The event is organized under ECSRA Project (Empowering Civil Society in Rural & Remote Areas) that is implemented by the Institute for Democracy and Mediation (IDM) with the support of UNDP Albania.

The Fair of Ideas aims to encourage concrete initiatives that will be jointly implemented under ECSRA Project with local CSOs in the target regions. It also strives to present to a broader audience – Albanian CSOs, state actors, donor community, media and private sector representatives etc. – an inclusive approach and possible practice that would be taken further by civic and other actors to address “fragmentarisation” of Albanian civil society’s inputs and thematic / geographical coverage.

ECSRA initiative has naturally followed the impact of another successful project carried out by IDM with UNDP support two years ago –the Civil Society Index (CSI) for Albania – offering in addition a wide body of knowledge and relevant evidence for civil society stakeholders. The missing civic contribution to the improvement of communities’ lives in Albania’s peripheral areas was identified by CSI as a major challenge that needs to be addressed jointly by civil society, state actors and the donors’ community.

The Fair of Ideas, follows the implementation of a series of ECSRA Project activities that have delivered in the past year (August 2011 – July 2012) improved capacities on organization management, fundraising, planning, information and guidelines on developing cooperation and building tripartite partnerships (civic-public-private), greater sensitivity on civic actors’ concerns among local government representatives, awareness raising for citizens to become an active part of civil society etc.