Tajik NGOs Learn About Advocacy in Albania

Tajikistan’s NGO community is still very much in development. Many new organizations are registered every year, but many lack the capacity to advocate their cause in promoting progressive change in their communities.

Albania’s Third Sector has a similar history. Emerging in the 1990s in what was once Europe’s most isolated police state, Albanian NGOs had to overcome a culture of government suspicion and citizen distrust.

Eight Tajik NGO leaders had the opportunity to see how their Albanian counterparts work during a ten-day Intensive Advocacy Training in November 2005, held in Tirana, Albania’s capital. The training is an important component of the Civic Advocacy Initiative, a program of the Civil Society Support Initiative, implemented by IREX in Tajikistan with funding from USAID.

“Tajik NGOs still lack many skills to help them plan and implement effective advocacy campaigns,” says Civic Advocacy Initiative Director Joshua Abrams. “Many still don’t understand what ‘advocacy’ means. This training will help these NGOs deepen their understanding and build real advocacy skills.”

Participants will also present the results of the training to other NGOs in their home communities, organizing seminars in cooperation with Tajikistan’s Civil Society Support Centers.

IREX cooperated with Partners for Democratic Change to organize the trainings in Tirana, Albania. Partners-Albania trainers helped participants sharpen their skills in problem analysis and strategic planning. Site visits with ten NGOs in two cities, plus meetings with government officials and journalists, demonstrated the scope and breadth of civic advocacy in Albania.

Says Sulkhiya Sadykova, director of NGO Bonu “What I am most impressed by is how Albanian NGOs manage very effective campaigns using simple tools. They organize their work and access resources that allow them to convey their message to a large number of people in a way that’s inexpensive and efficient.”

Albania provides a good model to Tajik NGOs by demonstrating how they have managed to overcome these and other obstacles to become important mediators between government and society.

“I was struck by how NGOs identify their stakeholders and learn how to work with them,” agreed Nodira Rakhmonberdieva, Program Director of the National Association of Independent Media of Tajikistan. “They are able to form alliances with business holders and government officials, access a reliable pool of independent supporters, as well as cooperate with other NGOs.”

There are some important differences between the two countries, of course. Albania is developing a stable multi-party system based on a balance of powers and interests. The country also has lively, open mass media, that helps promote public dialogue on important issues.

Tajikistan’s politics are less open to dissenting voices, especially after the events of the last year, when popular revolts in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan shook the political system and ushered in regime change.