The EITI Board yesterday (2 May) declared Albania 'Compliant' with the EITI Standard. EITI compliance means that the country has an effective process for annual disclosure and reconciliation of all revenues from its extractive sector. This allows citizens to see how much their country receives from oil, gas and mining companies.
Albania is a country in transition from a centrally-planned to a market-based economy. Although the extractives sector contributed just around 1% of GDP in 2010, the government is putting a lot of effort into oil and mining sector reforms and try to increase the revenues from the sector to the government.
The Board congratulates the government of Albania for its sustained commitment and leadership of their EITI process. The Board calls on the government and multi-stakeholder working group to ensure that the Board’s recommendations are implemented in full, and tasks the EITI International Secretariat with providing regular reports on its progress to the EITI Board.
The decision of the Board on Albania is cited below in full:
The EITI Board designates Albania as EITI Compliant as of 2 May 2013. In accordance with the EITI Rules:
Albania must be revalidated within 5 years (i.e. by 2 May 2018.) The MSG is advised that the Board is currently reviewing the validation procedures, including proposals relating to timing for revalidation of compliant countries. Accordingly this deadline may be modified;
Stakeholders in the process may call for a new validation at any time within that period if they think the process needs reviewing;
Where valid concerns exist that a country has become EITI Compliant, but its implementation of the EITI has subsequently fallen below the standard required for Compliance, then the Board reserves the right to require the country to undergo a new validation or face delisting from the EITI;
In accordance with the 2011 edition of the EITI Rules, Albania is required to produce EITI reports annually. EITI Reports should cover data no older than the second to last complete accounting period (e.g. an EITI Report published in calendar/financial year 2014 should be based on data no later than calendar/financial year 2012); and
In accordance with requirement 21(c), Albania is required to publish a public report annually on the previous year’s activities, detailing progress in implementing the EITI and any recommendations from the validator.
For further information about EITI in Albania, please see the country page on the EITI website or contact EITI Regional Director Richard Dion.
