EVALUATION AND MONITORING OF DIRECT SUPPORT FOR THE AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN FIERI REGION

Based on the Strategy of Rural Development, the Albanian Government supports directly the agricultural sector. Approximately 3.5 milliard leks have been spent from the state budget. Until now, there has not been an independent evaluation of the efficiency of the use of funds by the government. Such evaluation would be necessary not only to see what is given and how the money are spent, but to have a complete frame and to fully argue the programming of support in the future by respective institutions. Our aim is to identify some of the key outcomes of direct support policy in Fier’s region, to analyze and to evaluate the principles, the effects of supporting schemes as well as to identify the strong and weak points of the subvention scheme from which the direct state support in agriculture would become more effective and efficient. The verification of the effectiveness of the given funds will be achieved through comprehensive analysis described all the way from the application, the selection of applicants, the allocated amount, investment direction, absorption in different times until the final realization. This study was undertaken during 2011 through the development of a standardized methodology. In Fieri region, for 4 years, there have been allocated 435 million leke for direct support to the farmer’s families, respectively: 46 million in 2007, 114 million in 2008, 122 million in 2009 and 153 million lekë in 2010. The projects are invested in olives, vineyards, fruit trees, drip irrigation, greenhouses, livestock, etc. Our study showed that the state support measures for the period 2007-2010 have given significant positive results in the increasing of planted surfaces with fruit trees, olives and vineyards, for their production and productivity. On the other hand the study also showed that for higher grant effectiveness a harmonization of several factors is needed, such as soil, climate studies, seed quality etc.