Since February 2016, Partners Albania for Change and Development in partnership with the Italian organisations Project Ahead Societa Cooperativa and Comitato don Peppe Diana, is implementing the EU-funded project “C.A.U.S.E. – Confiscated Assets used for Social Experimentation”. The duration of the project is 30 months, with a total budget of EUR 451,127.89.

The project aims the effective and sustainable re-use of the confiscated assets by civil society organisations, based on the analysis and adaption of the successful and advanced international practices in the management of the confiscated assets for social projects with public benefits. Financial support will be provided to Albanian NPOs that will be selected through an open application process, to implement their social projects in confiscated assets.

On 27-28 and 29-30 June, Partners Albania organized two training programs on “Confiscation, re-use and management of the confiscated assets”, respectively with the Agency for the Administration of the Sequestered and Confiscated Assets (AAPSK) and “Marin Barleti” University. The trainings were delivered by Italian experts from the University of Naples ‘Federico II’, which manages a Master’s Degree in analysis of the phenomena of organized crime and strategies of social re-use of confiscated assets, and the organization Project Ahead Societa Cooperativa that promote social economy and supports the organizations in the management and re-use of confiscated assets for social purposes.

The training with 10 administrators of the sequestered and confiscated assets and coordinators of the AAPSK, served as a starting point for the assistance that the project will offer to the Agency for the preparation of the internal procedures for giving in use and monitor of assets to non-for-profit organsations for the implementation of social projects. While the training with 15 lecturers of “Marin Barleti” University served to introduce the concept of social economy and the curricula on the topic of confiscated assets based on the experience of the Master’s programme managed by the University of Naples, aiming its replication and inclusion in the program of the university.