During her first visit in Albania, Ambassador Ruth Huber met with Deputy Prime Minister Senida Mesi and signed two agreements that provide funding and technical support in the areas of governance and economy. The first for the Decentralisation and Local Development Programme (dldp) and the second for RisiAlbania, a youth employment programme. Both projects amount to just over 8.2 million Euro and are extensions of previous phases of Swiss support for Albania. During the meeting Ms. Mesi and Ambassador Huber discussed also Swiss government support regarding civil emergency and natural disaster cases.
After the signing of the two agreements, in her greeting speech Deputy Prime Minister Mesi stressing the long-term cooperation of more than 25 years of Albania with Switzerland, underlined the two pro-jects as very important and with successful results in their previous phases.
Regarding the Decentralisation and Local Development Programme (dldp) Ms. Mesi stated that alt-hough in its final stage this project will contribute further towards strengthening local governance. Meanwhile Ms. Mesi greeted the start of a new project in this area – Bashki të Forta (Strong Municipal-ities). Regarding the second agreement on "RisiAlbania", Deputy Prime Minister Mesi underlined the fact that such a project has in its focus youth employment in sectors like innovation, agriculture, rural development and tourism, and responds well to a priority of the Albanian government which is employ-ment. "As a result we believe that this project will help the Albanian government reach its objective", she said.
Among others Ms. Mesi expressed special thanks for the Swiss Cooperation Strategy 2018-2021 which was presented a few weeks ago and emphasised that the long-term cooperation between the two countries is a clear indication that the Swiss government is there to help and support Albania in all its initiatives and that the latter is fully engaged to reach the objectives.
Whereas in her speech, Ambassador Ruth Huber commended Albania’s reforms reached so far also with Swiss and international support, such as the Territorial and Administrative Reform and said: "I am pleased to be here today and sign agreements for two Swiss funded projects with you. At the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation we are happy to join forces and align our efforts alongside our partner governments. Even more so as Albania is one of our priority countries"
Two weeks ago the new Swiss Cooperation Strategy 2018-2021 was launched that foresees support for Albania in four areas: democratic governance, economic development and employment, infrastruc-ture and energy, and health. Today’s agreements are the first concrete examples of the projects in-cluded in the new Swiss strategy for support.
Albania is a priority country for Swiss international cooperation. Currently Switzerland is among the three largest bilateral donors in Albania.
