What is the project about?

The project is designed to strengthen capacity for environmental monitoring and information management in Albania by establishing an operational environmental information management and monitoring system EIMMS. The project will address the need for an environmental monitoring system that is integrated throughout relevant government institutions and that uses international monitoring standards for indicator development, data collection, analysis, and policy-making. It will also build on existing technical and institutional capacity in Albania to align its management and monitoring efforts with global monitoring and reporting priorities. Increased capacity in this area will improve reporting to the Rio Conventions and lay the groundwork for sustainable development through better-informed environmental policy.

The project is a response to the need for an environmental monitoring system that is integrated throughout the related government institutions, that is well coordinated and stimulates cooperation, using international monitoring standards for the selection of monitoring indicators, the data collection processes, the processing and reporting of this information covering all three Rio Conventions. It will develop national capacities in Albania to align its national environmental information management and monitoring system with global environmental monitoring and reporting priorities; including the compliance with the Multilateral Environment Agreements reporting obligations

Objectives

(i) Development of the EIMMS to enable integration of global environment commitments into planning and monitoring processes.

(ii) Development and application of uniform indicators encompassing UNFCCC, CBD and CCD concerns and global environmental threats,

(iii) Stakeholder’s capacity for information management (collection processing) of key global environment data and utilization (interpretation and reporting) is enhanced at national and local level.

Accomplishments

1. Development of the ROADMAP for establishing an operational environmental information management and monitoring system EIMMS.
   
2. Assessment of Albania’s National Capacities on Environment Monitoring; -developed by Technical Sheets for environmental indicators related to the three MEAs.
   
3. Citizen Science Concept : introduction is secured by running a BioBlitz, through the iNaturalist open portal with High School students
4. Citizen science approach : following the MOU between UNDP, Ministry of Tourism and Environment and Academia, the students from the Environmental Engineering Department in Polytechnic University of Tirana university focused on developing a methodology ‘Erosion Potential Method (EPM)’ to monitor soil erosion in Albania’s environment. They explored new technologies to measure potential quantity of soil erosion in Albania – due to the major impacts of this (e.g. pollution and sedimentation in rivers, declines in fish, nutrient decline, flooding etc.).
   
5. Establishment of EIMMS web platform: EIMMS, composed by a geospatial information component (GIS based mapping of stations within the territory of Republic of Albania), has successfully gathered environmental indicators as state, impact and pressure in a unique system which makes it easier to access for the wider public and gives a special contribution in raising awareness on environment quality in the country. In collaboration with partners such as National Environmental Agency, Regional Environmental Agencies, Ministry of Tourism and Environment, Local authorities and respective stakeholders, a national database of each of the indicators is developed. Furthermore, EIMMS provides numerous national reports prepared in the framework of environment field monitoring and gives information on Conventions that Republic of Albania is party, where you can find highlighted detailed obligations and further specifications.
6. Advancement of Environmental governance capacities: UNDP Albania engaged Dark Matter Laboratories (DML), to assist the Ministry of Tourism and Environment and a range of its government agencies in further developing its capacity for environmental governance and stewardship. The first hackathon on environmental governance innovation in Tirana was organized to explore innovative solutions to improving Albania’s environmental governance capacity by presenting 5 challenges and proposed solutions. By working together with a growing civic-minded technology in Albania, the hackathon showed new and collaborative ways of working between the public, private and civic sector to make the most of new digital technology opportunities, and strengthen the capacity of Albanian government and agencies to promote sustainable development and counter the risks of climate change and environmental degradation.
7. Revision of Albanian Red List Booklet: From June 2019 to March 2020 with the support of UNDP Albania, national experts and academic professors of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, a thorough assessment and revision of the Albanian Red List was undertaken, and new proposals were done to exclude and include species, as well as proposals to reconsider their threat category.
   
8. Trainings in data and information management: Training activities were focused on three main thematic fields related to the National Environmental Monitoring Programme: Biodiversity, Land Protection, Air Quality and Climate Change with NEA and REAs staff in Shkodër, Korcë and Vlorë on environmental monitoring, indicator reporting and EIMMS system use.