Interview with Mrs. Vilma Tomço, General Director of National Authority for Electronic Certification and Cyber Security, NAECCS Since the adoption of the Law “On Cyber Security”, how would you assess its implementation? The Law “On Cyber Security” was adopted at the beginning of 2017 and since its adoption the National Authority for Electronic Certification and Cyber Security has been engaged to fulfill the regulatory framework by drafting sub-legal acts and methodologies. We can thus state that the legal framework was completed within a 1-year period. The completion of the field regulatory framework was finalized by the approval of the Decision of the Council of Ministers “On Approval of Critical…

Mirjana is a young woman living in Kukës, mother of two young children. Even though she is a graduate nurse, she does not agree with her current status of unemployment but to economically contribute to the family and raising of her two children, she has turned her eyes on her passion about handmade wool products and tailoring. “This is the ideal combination for me, in a city like Kukës where employment opportunities are limited. I like preparing handmade wool products and this passion is opening new economic opportunities for me”- says Mirjana. Mirjana is one of the 40 women from Kukës region participating in the new project “Market…

The GlobalG.A.P is a challenging standard for farmers, agri collectors and exporters, but being aware of the high interest for this standard, the Swiss-funded project RisiAlbania partnered with Albinspekt to build Agroquality platform. The platform is an innovative tool which provides free information about GlobalG.A.P and implementation of the standard for individual and group certification in Albanian language for consultants, farmers, agriculture cooperative, exporters who cooperates with their farmers. More certifications such as organic will be added in the coming months. “Agroquality platform offers a set of guidelines for implementing GlobalG.A.P. and other standards, as well as informs market players about the latest standard developments” – says Irjana…

The thematic field of career guidance is drawing more and more attention in Albania. Different market actors are responding by strengthening or improving their roles in this new but complex ecosystem for the Albanian context. RisiAlbania is supporting the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tirana in their ambition to become a centre of expertise for career guidance services, by entering a long-term partnership with the University of Lausanne. After a successful exchange last November in Switzerland, the two institutions organized during April, a joint workshop in Albania. This workshop focused on the improvement of the master program ‘Career Orientation’ of Faculty of Social Sciences, based on the…

For the first time, a group of tourism stakeholders from Qarku of Gjirokastra (Gjirokastra, Permet & Tepelena) decided and agreed among each other to participate and promote their destination, Gjirokastra region, using the same brand “Visit Gjirokastra” under one stand at the Tirana International Tourism Fair, 5 & 6 April 2019. 16 tourism actors, as tour operators, HoReCa representatives, rural tourism businesses and local authorities from the region promoted their offer, new packages and tours developed recently for the new tourism season 2019. Participants confirmed that tour operators and agencies, both national and international, were interested in their new packages to explore more Gjirokastra, Telepena and Permet, while…

How to make tourists stay longer in Albania, travel deeper into rural areas, and come all-year around as they do when they visit Switzerland? We are piloting twinning and expertise exchanges between businesses from Switzerland and Albania in alignment with the country’s 100 Villages Strategy. During March, 13 agrotourism businesses from the “100 Villages” initiative are visiting Swiss businesses to observe best practices and establish business linkages. This is the 2nd group of people benefiting from this exchange. In December 2018, four Albanians went to Switzerland to learn more about one of the areas that the Swiss identified as having high potential for development: horseback riding. “Caravan Horse…

The first group of 20 career counsellors from 4 Albanian universities are attending a 3-week-long journey to obtain the international certification – Global Career Development Facilitator. «This training program is an excellent to prepare and equip our staff with professional skills and techniques for helping our students to achieve their career goals,” – said Xhafer Rakipllari, Director of Administration and Academic Services at “Aleksandër Xhuvani” University in Durres, part of this training. Global Career Development Facilitator is a training and certification program developed to provide international recognition to career development professionals and which promotes life-long-learning philosophy. Participants in this first training are from University of Tirana, Agricultural University…

To access EU markets, meeting safe and sustainable agricultural requirements and obtaining certification is a necessity for Albanian products. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Albania (MARD) and RisiAlbania joined efforts to bring for the first time in Albania on March 16th 2019 GLOBALG.A.P. TOUR, the perfect opportunity for fruits and vegetables’ agrocollectors, exporters, producers, supermarkets, consultants and certification bodies. More than hundred participants attended the one-day conference organised during the 2nd  Edition of Agro-Tech Expo & Forum 2019. The TOUR was a unique opportunity to meet the owners of one of the biggest standards in the world, to network and meet business partners and service…