Albania and Macedonia People’s Empoverment Programme – AMPEP

The answer to the question: “What do you need money for?” 

Albania and Macedonia People’s Empoverment Programme – AMPEP is a non-governmental organization financed by the Swedish governmental agency – SIDA (Swedish Agency for Cooperation and International Development). It is a cross-border cooperation program that has been implementing for more than five years through its offices in Ohrid, Macedonia and Korca, Albania.

Although it is financed by the Swedish government, AMPEP is focused on local level and works separately from the donors, government agencies and other big organizations. AMPEP philosophy is to change the focus of attention from asking for money to finding solutions. The citizens need to realize that they can do something themselves, without help from others. The organization has also asked the villagers the question: what do you need money for?

Money does not solve everything. A road can be repaired without help from the side, villagers themselves can organize the collection of waste. What is necessary is organization and mobilization and those are the areas where AMPEP can help. In this organization, they believe that in times when authorities on local and central level have too much work, villagers self-organization needs to be strengthened in order to achieve positive changes.

So, how can it be done? In the municipalities Sopotnica, Dolneni and Resen in Macedonia and Lekenas, Pojan and Vitkuk in the region of Korca in Albania, AMPEP have their staff who also live there. Through regular meetings with the villagers, the organization learns about their needs and problems. Sometimes, all that is necessary is to help people organize themselves to solve a certain problem, or sometimes the villagers are given supporting contacts with the local authorities, so that in return, they can cope with the problem themselves.  As an additional benefit from this way of work is that villagers grew closer with the local authorities and they can work together and improve the society and the local democracy.

However, taking into consideration the fact that AMPEP is a cross-border program, solutions are looked for on the other side of the Macedonian-Albanian border. Thus, the program helped to establish cooperation between the universities from Bitola and Korca, which are now planning their future cooperation. The gap has been bridged between the citizens and authorities and between people from Macedonia and Albania. In future, the information that are gathered on local level will be prosecuted to the ministries and members of parliament, so that they can take part in the process that is now starting on village level.