This report is prepared in the frame of the project: “Improving coverage and effectiveness management of marine and coastal protected areas –phase II / Enhancing financial sustainability of Protected areas system in Albania”, implemented by UNDP Albania. Gender and nature conservation are considered largely as cross cutting issues. Nature protection and management of Protected Areas have been largely cast as the domain of men. Integrating a gender perspective into the conservation of protected areas contributes toward the following activity in the Program of Work on Protected Areas, formulated during the Seventh Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP7) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2004: “Carrying out participatory national reviews of the status, needs and context-specific mechanisms for involving stakeholders, ensuring gender and social equity, in protected areas policy and management, at the level of national policy, protected area systems and individual sites”.

Based on gender analyses; the legal national and international framework and the gender practice a Gender Action Plan that contains a broad list of priority actions to address the Gender Equality in the Protected Area Administration and Management in Albania is proposed. It aims at gender advancement in all management levels: from Central Government to regional and local level. Albanian Government has expressed the clear commitment to incorporate gender perspectives into all policies and programs aimed at environmental policies and sustainable development. Such programs will be more sustainable and more equitable for both women and men in Albania. They will have multi positive effects to employment, income generation, democracy development and public participation in decision making processes, education and professional enhancement for both women and men, at local and national level.