“I do not care what party governs there; they really helped me.” Tirana resident

Earlier, a long and harrowing wait for information from the municipality

If you were a resident of Tirana, Albania, four years ago and you needed an official answer from the municipality’s information center, you would have to join a line outside a corrugated iron shipping container and wait for one of its small windows to open. 

Bent over and straining to make eye contact with the person inside, you would think that "information center" was a terrible misnomer.

Rain or shine, hundreds of people went to this makeshift office seeking answers about identity papers, labor permits, or the legalization of their illegal homes. They spent days trying to sort out their problems, sometimes in a pitched battle of nerves with busy clerks who reeled off answers like unconcerned automatons. Trying to get their attention was an endurance test.

As the city grows, getting information becomes a pitched battle of nerves

That scene became an eyesore for the new mayor of Tirana. With people constantly moving in from the countryside, the city was bursting at the seams. Its threefold increase in population within the span of a decade had left infrastructure strained and unable to meet the surging demand for sanitation, roads, business licenses, and building permits.

Mayor Edi Rama took members of a World Bank team to observe the scene in 2000. “If you want to help us,” Rama said as they looked out his office window, "let us work on building a modern information center. I cannot stand that sight.”

The mayor sought World Bank assistance to improve public service delivery by providing the citizens of Tirana with a municipal center where they could lodge complaints and seek answers to questions.


Transparency is effective in curbing corruption

Keti Treska, the head of human resources for the city's government, thought that the situation reflected poorly on the municipality. “We had done a lot to cut back on graft but it was by no means wiped out,” she added.

Accustomed to see government officials as obstacles to be overcome by bribes, citizens were often prepared to pay large sums to get their complaints or requests taken care of expeditiously.

A World Bank team took up this challenge as part of its anticorruption work and obtained funding for the project from the governments of the Netherlands (US$ 614,000) and Norway (US$ 25,000). The funds were used to build a new online information center, a new city council meeting hall, three pilot information centers in the suburbs, and to conduct a citizen survey.

A new information center makes things easier for residents

Flash forward to the present day: Just across the road from where the unwelcoming box rusts in solitude, a spacious and bright hall has come up. Visitors are directed to a machine that gives them a ticket with the number of the desk they should contact. City-employed lawyers can also be consulted at one of the counters. Once a complaint or request is filed, the residents are told when they should come back or what number they should call for more information.

“It's been 10 years of hardship since they took away my studio,” says sculptor Vasil Sollaku. “The people here gave me valuable information; I wish solving my problem was under their jurisdiction, too.” During a quiet afternoon, all eight clerks could be heard competing to instruct a woman who had trouble pushing the right button. There are several buttons for services and one for urban planning issues.

“We are still a long way from where we want to be—but the days when there were 500 people waiting in line are over,” Treska, the human resources director, adds. But Treska is most proud of the second component of the project. This is a citizens’ report card or monitoring mechanism which allows the city to track which services are delivered effectively, which are not, and why.