First Rural Parliament
First Rural Parliament
First Albanian Rural Parliament
A European project …
Articulated as an idea a year ago, the “Rural Parliament” became a project where everyone began to believe and is now beginning to turn into a comprehensive practice to promote and undertake the necessary reforms aimed at revitalizing and rebirth of rural areas. The Albanian Rural Development Network (ANRD) initiative for a “Rural Parliament” as an instrument to support the European idea in rural development is not only an economic and social development project in rural areas of the country, but at the same time and strongly it is also a project democracy. Supporting public-private partnership, awareness and involvement of each citizen in Local Action Plans (LAGs) development plans, co-operation and networking between actors, involvement of women and youth and support for interaction between local government, business enterprise and society civilians turn this venture into an irreplaceable sustainable development project. This is to ensure that in each area of the country there are established and functioning tripartite partnership structures able to put in place local communities in function of development and as such be able to absorb EU assistance in the following years.
The Rural Parliament seeks to sensitize and support every effort to capture the pace of time in rural development policies and practices through a bottom-up approach. Through the ANRD, the Rural Parliament will be extended across the country and will soon be decentralized into four regional forums, which will also serve as regional rural parliaments. This two day activity throws the ground up for a regional synergy of public actors, rural businesses, and civil society. All of these prove that the ANRD welcomes and is working continuously with the aim towards September 2019 when the second Rural Parliament will be convened, in which will be an assessment of the achievements so far and will be further encouraged and strengthened those. The Final Declaration of the First Rural Parliament to be read in the Albanian Parliament Hall on 30 September is our challenge for the next two years.
Sotiraq Hroni
Chairman of the Board,
Albanian Network for Rural Development