The Third Call for Proposals: the Award Ceremony
In response to the third IADSA Call for Proposals open to Ministries only and launched on January 27, 2015 and the terms of which were closed on last March 30, there were submitted 38 Project Proposals from 14 different Ministries for a total requested funding of almost 15 million Euro equivalent, mainly for projects aiming at strengthening primary education, improving vocational education and training (VET), as well as improving health services and first aid, initiatives to support the social inclusion of vulnerable groups and to favour youth employment, territorial development and promotion of sustainable and responsible tourism to contribute to the recovery of the cultural, natural and architectural of the country by creating new job opportunities especially in areas of emigration. On May 22 in Tirana, the Italian Ambassador, Massimo Gaiani, and the Albanian Minister of Finance, Shkelqim Cani, have awarded 6 new Projects that have received the highest scores at the end of the process of joint evaluation of the submitted proposals as determined by the Management Committee of the IADSA Programme. These 6 awarded Projects will be financed from the IADSA funds of the debt swap for a total of about 2.5 million Euro equivalent in addition to the 25 projects already funded for a total of over 9 million, of which 7 projects were already brought to completion. The ministries which submitted these 6 Projects selected to be funded, are the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Economic Development and Tourism, the Ministry of Social Welfare and Youth, the Ministry of Education and Sport and the Ministry for Innovation and Public Administration. These 6 Projects are designed to expand emergency services and first aid in five different hospitals along the coastal zone; territorial development and the promotion of responsible and sustainable tourism and another project again for the promotion of tourism through the recovery of one of the collective memory about fifty years of isolation experienced by Albanians; the technical vocational training in mechatronics; the creation of an Innovation Hub in Tirana; and finally a project to support the school as community center, to be carried out in a first stage in 5 different schools of the country. Italian partners of the Albanian Ministries proposing these 6 Projects are the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, the Tuscany Region, the Emilia Romagna Region and the town of Vieste.