Location: Tirana, Albania
Website: www.akm.gov.al
Contact person: Oriana Hanxhari
e-mail: ohanxhari@yahoo.com, oriana.hanxhari@akm.gov.al
Phone number: +355 692625725
The National Environmental Agency (NEA) was established by the Decision of Council of Ministers, No. 47 dated on 29/01/2014 on `Establishing the rules and procedures for functioning and organization of National Environmental Agency` in the framework of restructuring the former Agency of Environment and Forestry. The Agency is a legal, public and budgetary institution under the Minister of Tourism and Environment.
Its main duties and responsibilities are related with the: monitoring of the state of environment in all the country based on the main environmental indicators and components in: air, waters, soil, forests and biodiversity. NEA is also the national institution in charge with the building up and managing the National Environmental Information System and National Forest Inventory. Part of environmental data bases is also PRTR which is arranged by NEA. All the private operators who have been subject of Environmental Permission and Environmental Impact Assessment Procedures, have to submit to NEA the self-monitoring reports in line with the conditions established for them to the EP. Among other issues NEA also follows and approves (or reject) the procedures related to the EIA and EP.
It has 62 people working at the head office located in Tirana and 104 people at 12 Regional Environmental Agencies in 12 main districts.
Budget: AEF is a budgetary institution under the Minister of Tourism and Environment.
The Agency has the structure as follows:
1- Environmental Assessment Directory
a- Environmental Impact Assessment Unit/ Sector
b-Environmental Permissions Unit/Sector
c-Environmental Liability Unit/Sector
2-Environmental Data & Information Directory
a- GIS/ SIM/IT Unit/ Sector
b-PRTR Unit/ Sector
c- Sustainable Development and Innovation Unit/Sector
3- Environmental state and quality assessment Directory
a- LABORATORY
b-SOER and quality assessment unit/ sector
4- Forestry Directory
a-National Forests Inventory Unit/Sector
b-Silviculture unit/ sector
c-Forests Management Plans unit/ sector
NEA has its human resources who can offer not onlyenvironmental monitoring activities, assessment of environmental data and information from an integrated point of view but also the drafting of technical and narrative reports on the state of environment at local and national level based on its monitoring activities. The people working at the agency, through the outputs produced by them, have the duty on providing recommendations and conclusions based on reliable data to the policymakers, based on the professional and scientific expertise services. Most of the people working at the agency are environmental experts, chemists, biologist, forestry engineering, GIS experts, environmental engineer etc.
NEA has its LABORATORY with many years of experience in analyzing and sampling activities of waters, air, noise etc. The monitoring of water bodies performed by NEA lab includes: surface, ground, marine and coastal waters based on the WFD Components as well. It is accredited for 10 basic water quality parameters by ISO Standards and on the Quality Manual which is designe in compliance with ISO 17025. Most of the people working at the NEA LAB are chemists and biologist.
NEA as PP5 at the WetMainAreas project has to contribute to the implementation of all the activities foreseen by the project including all the five WPs. In each of them it is expected its contribute which is important for the successful implementation for each of them. In particular WP 2, WP3, WP4. In the meantime PP5 is responsible for WP5 `Support in Policy and action plan` which will be coordinated by NEA/PP5. The coordination role for the implementation of this WP5 will be crucial for it.