Speaking at the ceremony on the 30th year anniversary of the United Nations Development Program in Albania, Rama said that, “although Albania joined the United Nations in December 1955, it took us 36 years to enter into a meaningful relationship with the UN through the United Nations Development Program, or more precisely, with the UNDP. And at that time the sole purpose of the UNDP was to give as much oxygen as possible to the country at a time of dramatic change that, along with freedom, had brought a mountain of challenges and difficulties.”

“It is really almost unimaginable that in the span of a lifetime we have had the good fortune to see two worlds so different from each other. The world of the past, when even though we were members of the UN there was no interaction with the UN Development Program. “And the world of today and the future at the same time, when in the span of a lifetime we are non-permanent members of the UN Security Council,” Rama said.

“Many things that have been done over these 30 years thanks to cooperation between the program and the government and for the sake of truth what impresses us most when looking at the long list of things done is the fact that the program has been present at the most critical, key moments of this process of transformation from a totally closed dictatorship to a democracy under construction, ” Rama said.
“In fact, the program was present with the opening of the first public school of administration. The program was present at the time of the 1997 riots, when the initiative of weapons in exchange for development was piloted under the UNDP,” Rama added.

“The program has been present at the time of Tirana’s historical turning point, when after 10 years of unprecedented chaos and unimaginable urban deformation as a result of uncontrolled demographic flows to Tirana and the absence of law and order, we embarked on a new journey, trying to restore the city to the people, trying to give people a sense of public space, no longer happening there as a result of the complete lack of private property, but of public space as an access space in between people’s private properties, ” stressed Rama.

“Thanks to the program we have not only had the opportunity to make some important interventions in financial terms, but we have had the opportunity to interact with an organization which other than money, in my view, has the knowhow and ability to transfer knowledge in function of everything that has to do with organization from the way a concept is presented in a project to implementation of a project. Things that today may seem to us have always been there, but in fact have not always been there,” PM said.

“We had to learn all these things in the same way as the children ‘Step by Step Primer’ and in this case, not 1, 2, 3 or 100 individuals, but an entire society had to attend a course against illiteracy in relation to democracy and not to literature. I believe that the program has played an unforgettable role in the history of our country, ” said Rama.

Also, Rama added, “the program has been present in some pivotal moments when we had to conceptualize reforms with profound impact, from territorial administrative reform to justice reform. It is worth mentioning that it was present when we had to manage the floods, becoming an easily accessible bridge between the EU and the Albanian government, as it is actually part of a major post-earthquake reconstruction pipelining all the contributions of different donors and in particular of the largest donor in this case, which is the EU. ”

“For all these, I believe that the program remains a pivotal factor in the life of our country, in the life of our society, in the life of politics, in the sense of supporting all the efforts of decision-makers on the path of implementing their decisions, from decisions on reforms, to decisions related to addressing even dramatic needs, such as those of the 1990s, those of the early 2000s, or those that are still before our eyes, when we consider that we still have a long way to go to conclude the great program of reconstruction and to leave a tragedy behind creating the possibility that everything that was left in ruins will be built back better and stronger than before the earthquake”, Rama underlined.
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