According to the Labor force survey conducted by INSTAT, the low access to childcare is identified as an obstacle for women to access to the labor market. 

The National Agency for Employment and Skills (NAES) also identifies the lack of early childcare services as one of the first barriers to women employment. That is why the NAES proposed to include, in its national strategy under the Employment Promotion Law, the delivery of flat rate vouchers for childcare to women registered in the national employment services database.

At the national level, childcare policies are under the competence of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection, while  the care provision competences are delegated to local governments (“municipalities”) regarding employment of professionals working in creches, infrastructure, etc. The municipalities are thus in charge to develop childcare services on their territory to meet the population needs but they are directed by no national standards of quality to do so.

In Albania the legislative regulatory framework to cover the varieties of settings which influence, directly or not, in the wide range of activities from education to child care, to nutrition,  to parent education that involve ECCD (Early childhood Care and developpemnt), to regulate nationally the variety of settings (homes, crèches, kindergartens, schools, health facilities) where ECCD takes place, or, to regulate through an overarching regulatory policy document the public, private, and non-governmental agencies which offer services in ECCD, cannot be considered overarching. There are several legislative documents that focus on children’s rights, and for the first time in the National Agenda for Children’s rights 2017 - 2020, which is a systematic multidisciplinary framework aimed to be integrated into all national and local child-related documents, plans and other national or local activities relevant to UNCRC Convention for Children's rights, there is Objective 5, which puts into one issue the standards for crèches and kindergartens, parenting quality and inclusion of children with special needs since they are 5 years old .

Childhood institutional care in Albania has two distinctive structures, that follow different legislative norms: crèches (çerdhe), offering mainly care and support for children from 6 months – 3 years; and preschool (kopsht), supporting the holistic development of children 3-6 years old. This document will follow this distinction in order to better explore the lacunas in the legislative framework organizing both institutions.

Objectives : 

-          Foster the official adoption of national standards to be implemented for the delivery of early childcare services for children 0-3 and the development of a system to monitor compliance (on the basis of the work done by Save the Children and UNICEF and, the experience of Tirana’s municipality and also Elbasan and Korca) through workshops/national roundtable gathering Albanian main stakeholders and French specialists.

-          Expose Albanian partners at local and central level, public and private to other models of child care services inspired by French/ European examples.

National expert specific tasks (35 working days):

•           Support the international expert in the drafting of the consultancy work plan, including the methodology and agree on the division of tasks (in English)
•       Provide relevant input to facilitate international expert onboarding and adaptation to the Albanian context for the Review of existing regulatory framework, the preparation of the presentation and the agenda of the meetings in the 4 municipalities. Participate actively to meetings and consultation with the three municipalities and the private sector
•        Conducts an Assessment of the care services offer (range of providers covering formal and informal solutions, size of the sector in terms of employment/contribution to GDP/public expenditures, qualifications and working conditions of professionals of the sector, costs for families and financing mechanisms, standards and quality of services), the demand for services 
•          Provide relevant input to the report on Standards of Care for early Child Care Facilities drafted by the international expert and discussions with the Albanian stakeholders 
•      Support the international expert in the drafting and discussions of the workshop concept note (programme, content), in English
•      Participate actively to the workshop by animating discussions among the stakeholders to identify gaps and solutions for improving the delivery of early childcare services in Albania 

All task developed from the international expert will be coordinated with the national expert and are subject of approval from EF team leader and project manager. In delivering the task the international expert will work closely with the national expert. The assignment is odorising 2 missions of 4/5 days to Albania.