(Review Article*) Non Profit Organizations on the Protection and Promotion of Women’s Rights: Albanian Case

Abstract

Civil society organizations, since 1990 and beyond the Kosovo crisis in 1998, found a favorable environment in Albania to create an important pillar on promoting, recognizing, guaranteeing, preserving and improving the citizen's rights. As the first organizations centered on women’s and their rights, they became the protagonists of many awareness-raising campaigns, advocacy, and lobbying actions, in improving the situation and creating legal instruments to help them. They found and filled the gaps created by the lack or inability of State, national and local authorities, to provide a wide range of social services by giving them an important elite role. This article tries to provide a picture of how civil society has evolved in Albania and more on, its role in social and economic changes. Actions are undertaken by women's NGOs over the years and their contribution to improving the situation of gender equality and domestic violence in Albania. New forms of public-private partnership and some of the survival challenges faced by women's organizations nowadays, will be another reflection in this paper.