The Albanian Central Elections Commission (CEC) has launched today its Strategic Plan 2022-2026 in an event organised with the Council of Europe support, with the participation of the CEC's administration, as well as of domestic and international stakeholders.

This is the first Strategic Plan of the institution, since its creation, outlining a detailed set of goals, concrete activities and indicators to be carried out on a mid-term basis. It is prepared with the Council of Europe assistance through a structured and inclusive approach in close cooperation and contribution of the senior CEC staff.

It is based on a thorough analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) in setting up the institutional priorities and measures to meet them in a realistic timeframe and fashion, taking into account the lessons learned from previous electoral cycles and the dynamics of the Albanian context.

Some of the priority areas it tackles involve the Out of Country Voting, Digitalisation of key election administration processes, strengthening the internal and external training and education capacities, etc.

State Election Commissioner, Mr Ilirjan Celibashi, thanked the Council of Europe for the support it has given to the CEC and stressed that this important document, coming for the first time, is the result of a dynamic cooperation and coordination between the CEC administration and international experts of the Council of Europe.

On behalf of the Council of Europe, the Head of Office in Tirana, Ms Jutta Gützkow, thanked the State Election Commissioner Mr Celibashi for the continuous partnership to further consolidating the CEC's capacities and reconfirmed the Council of Europe's contribution in a number of specific areas, notably on the strengthening of the oversight capacities of the CEC for the control and verification of election campaign financial reports of electoral subjects, further improvement of its training and education capacities, as well as of the IT infrastructure.