Implementing period: December 2020 – June 2024
Budget: US$1,661,314
The project aimed to strengthen national institutions and systems and improve collaboration and coordination between relevant institutions and affected communities for an effective and efficient response to SALW/firearms threats. It was designed to respond to some of the immediate needs of the National Strategy on SALW and Explosives Control 2019-2024, and the related Action Plan 2019-2021, and it built on Albania’s commitment to achieve sustainable solutions to the illegal possession, misuse and trafficking of SALW and ammunition, and in response to priorities expressed by the Albanian State Police (ASP).
The project proposed to address several interlinked measures. Specifically, the project aimed to improve and modernize the registration of all legally possessed firearms in Albania, by supporting the government’s initiative to re-register all legally possessed weapons and digitalize all firearms-related data within a single national database. The project also aimed to assist the Albanian State Police in bringing an additional 10% of its firearms and ammunition storages to acceptable storage and safety standards, preventing the risk of diversion and hence illegal possession, misuse and trafficking. Finally, a comprehensive awareness campaign was to be implemented, carried out in collaboration with the ASP, lead civil society organizations and media, including specifically women and youth organizations. The aim of the campaign was to reduce the demand and misuse of firearms, prevent gender-based violence and family crime, and increase confidence in security institutions.
Overall achievements:
- Enhanced weapons registration in accordance with the national legislation and EU Directive on firearms.
- The Albanian State Police (ASP) was equipped with the necessary IT equipment - encompassing 58 PCs, 54 printers, and 2 laptop computers – thus supporting the expanded police workforce in the firearms’ re-registration process launched by the government in 2020.
- In addition, the ASP received through the project the IT equipment for the issuance of digital cards for firearm owners, consisting of three special printers, holographic film, special ink, and software, as well as 100,000 digital cards to be issued to firearms owners. It supported the installation of the equipment at ASP and trained 11 police officers (9 men and 2 women) in their use.
- Following the serious cyber-attack in September 2022 that greatly affected the ASP systems, including the weapons registration system SIMA, the ASP undertook a thorough reassessment of its systems and vulnerabilities. Ultimately, the ASP requested complete overhaul of SIMA, for the system to be rebuilt with higher technical and security parameters and additional modules, affecting re-registration records and the issuance of digital ownership cards and thus affecting the project’s original plans. The ASP’s request for a complete overhaul of the SIMA system went beyond the envisaged project’s scope and resources available for support. Thus, the rebuilding of the system was to be funded through other sources (supported by SEESAC).
- Due to the circumstances, it was determined that the equipment provided by the project will be used by the ASP to enter necessary data manually until the SIMA overhaul and update with the module for issuing digital cards is complete. As such, the scope of support was affected by the force majeure and the envisaged result was therefore partially achieved by the project.
- Nevertheless, the project contributed to the government’s efforts towards weapons re-registration, whereby from 55% of re-registered firearms owners at the beginning of the project, the re-registration rate reached about 94% by the end of the project.
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Improved Albanian State Police weapons storage facilities and management.
- The project rehabilitated and ensured standard safety and security compliance of seven (7) ASP weapons storage facilities located at the five district police commissariats of Mat, Puka, Tropoja, Lushnja, Pogradec, and two at the regional police directorate levels in Fier and Tirana. The facilities have undergone the oversight of the Testing and Commission company, which issued an affirmative report for the conducted works. All the facilities were handed over to the respective local police authorities.
- Noteworthy is that the original project plans entailed reconstruction of three more facilities located in Berat, Elbasan and Saranda. However, the police facilities in these locations were undergoing total renovation with financing from the state budget (including the evidence rooms planned to be refurbished by the project), thus the project excluded these facilities from its projected plans.
- In addition, the project equipped 10 ASP facilities - in Mat, Puka, Tropoja, Lushnja, Pogradec, Fier, Tirana, Berat, Elbasan and Saranda – with two ordinary metal shelves, one security shelf, and three standard weapon shelves each.
- Overall, with the additional seven (7) weapons storages rehabilitated (out of the 94 storages in total), and together with the three storages rehabilitated by the ASP through the state funds, the project enabled ASP to reach the target of 58% of its weapons storages rehabilitated, furbished and standard compliant.
- Increased citizens’ engagement and awareness on the dangers and risks associated with SALW.
- As the first undertaken step in 2021, the project completed a desk review of SALW Control situation in Albania, using data provided by the ASP and available through other sources, disaggregated as much as possible by age, gender, social status and geography. The desk review considered the perception surveys previously conducted by SEESAC in Albania in 2016 and 2017.
- The desk review was followed by a national survey to understand the perceptions, attitudes and knowledge about SALW among the population. The survey was conducted with a nationally representative sample of 1,203 respondents of 16 years and above, for the period 6-21 January 2022. A final report was published in February 2022, aimed at providing an overview of the current situation on public perceptions, attitude and knowledge of SALW. Its purpose was to supply the law-enforcement agencies with data, informing them on public perceptions of such issues, thus increasing the efficiency of relevant policy implementation. Furthermore, the findings of the report were to support an awareness-raising campaign, focused on raising public awareness on risks of firearm possession, as well as on consequences of illegal possession.
- A general public awareness campaign followed. For the campaign, the efforts were joined with the OSCE Presence in Albania, that also supported the Ministry of Interior and ASP to enhance their public information on SALW matters and raise awareness on SALW misuse and related risks and threats. The public awareness raising campaign was jointly launched on 06 June 2023 in cooperation with the SALW commission/MoI and the OSCE. This enabled a coordinated action and a broader and complementary outreach to communities. In view of the complementary activities, and in consultation and agreement with the ASP, the project’s public awareness campaign focused on youth in schools, social media, and participation in a national TV show, while the OSCE campaign tackled more specifically the gender-based violence and entailed cooperation with four civil society organizations among others. Activities were also directed towards capacity building of relevant ASP staff, especially those responsible for crime prevention, community policing and public relations.
- The project coordinated closely with the ASP regarding the implementation of the campaign. Through the marketing company that the UNDP contracted, and in close coordination with the ASP, the awareness-raising campaign materials were conceptualized and promoted. Dedicated social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok) for the awareness campaign were opened by the contracted company. The campaign materials and actions encompassed the following:
- Production of three video clips addressing i) the dangers of weapons/illegal misuse of weapons with a call to action, ii) weapons owners with the aim of re-registration of their legal weapons, iii) one video with the aim of strengthening police-community relations.
- Designed and printed postcards and pens (2000 each) as well as 4 posters (3000 copies each), for distribution across schools.
- 15 gifs were produced to underline key campaign messages via social media with a call to action.
- A structured campaign was implemented on social media for a period of 3 months, including 3 social media posts per week.
- Participation in one talk show on National TV introducing the project and the campaign.
- A picture contest was organized on Instagram with the theme “A world without weapons”: the winner of the best submitted picture at the national level was awarded a tablet.
- The outreach of the general awareness campaign is estimated at around 1,5 million people.
- An important strand of the campaign encompassed outreach to high schools. In this respect, twenty-four schools were selected for the outreach, in all the 12 regions of Albania. From 15 April to 10 May 2024, the project team in cooperation with the ASP and the school security officers organized 12 meetings in all the 12 regions of Albania to raise awareness about the dangers and misuse of SALW and called for youth without violence. The meetings encompassed approximately 800 high school students. Posters and postcards were distributed in the security corners of 24 schools. Some of the produced materials were given to the dedicated community-policing experts in each regional police directorate, so that posters can be distributed in more schools in each region.
The project contributed to Roadmap Goals 2, 4, 5, 7 and key performance indicators 4, 10, 13, 14 of the Roadmap for a sustainable solution to the illegal possession, misuse and trafficking of Small Arms and Light Weapons and their ammunition in the Western Balkans.
