Albania has a mineral and oil extractive industry that is developing extensively by attracting domestic and foreign investor. This clearly indicate the importance of this sector, its transparent management as well as the inclusion of Albania on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.
The EITI as an international initiative started in 2002, at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. The Albanian Government supported this initiative and committed to implement the EITI on March 2009 and became EITI candidate country on May 2009.
The EITI Albania Secretariat was established by a Decision of the Council of Ministers on 07.07.2010. The Multi-Stakeholder Group was established by the Prime Minister Order on 21.07.2011 composed of civil society, companies operating in the extractive industry and the government. The Deputy Minister of Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy lead the Multi-Stakeholder Group on charge of implementing and supervising the EITI initiative in Albania.
On April 2011, Albania published its first EITI Report for 2009 fiscal year. The report reveals insignificant discrepancies of companies’ payments and state declared revenues.
On August 2011, the Validation Report on the EITI Albania implementation was published. On June 2012, Albania published the second EITI Report for 2010 fiscal year.
On May 2, 2013, Albania become an EITI compliant country. In accordance with the EITI Standard, the International Board declared Albania a compliant country. Albania being an EITI compliant country brought changes on DCM for Secretariat: DCM No. 993 dated 09.12.2015 on the organization and functioning of the EITI National Secretariat in the framework of International Organization membership.
Compliance with the EITI Standard means that country has an effective process for annual declaration and reconciliation of all revenue coming from the extractive industry sector. This process allows citizens to see how much revenue their country receives from oil, gas and mining companies.
In accordance with the new EITI Standard, Albania within 2014 published two EITI Reports, 2011 EITI Report, on June 27, 2014 and 2012 EITI Report on November 21,2014.
Further, in accordance with the EITI Standard on December 23, 2015 Albania published 2013-2014 EITI Report and for the first time the Hydropower sector was included.
In accordance with the New EITI Standard on February 1, 2017 Albania published the 2015 EITI Report.
During 2017 for the implementation and performance of the EITI Standard, Albania underwent the International Validation Process by EITI International Board in Oslo.
On February 2018 the EITI International Board issued official decision that Albania has made significant progress in the EITI Standard implementation. On the Validation Report is stated that Albania on 55% of the Chapters has a very Satisfactory performance (including government and business engagement, legal framework, contribution to the economy, public debate, etc.); on 45% of the Chapters there is Significant performance (MSG leadership, Civil Society engagement) and only 5% are rated as Insufficient or no progress.
On February 15, 2018 the EITI National Secretariat published the 2016 EITI Report and on December 2020 published the 2017-2018 EITI Report.