The last years have seen a number of initiatives to build databases of civil society organizations. However, the greatest part of these databases for civil society are sectoral (women, services, environmental, etc.,) or generic (including all kinds of civil society organizations such as for instance the Directory of NGO-s published by the Albanian Foundation for Civil Society, databases by Partners – Albania, etc.). Whereas at the level of individual expertise on the NGO market, the number of available databases is limited (the Database of the Women’s Center on Gender Trainers, the Database of the Regional Environmental Center (REC) on Environmental Experts, etc.) Given the absence of a comprehensive database of civil society experts, OSFA committed itself to building it in order to serve the entire civil society sector in Albania.

The database is being constructed in such ways as to promote local experts and encourage their participation in projects funded by both international and local agencies and by the government, especially those projects that require cross border cooperation.

OSFA believes that this database will be a useful source to draw on the best possible experts to implement important projects locally. The database will offer possibilities to use local expertise is areas that give full recognition to its capabilities in comparison with foreign expertise (less cost, better understanding of the country’s issues, etc.). Foreign expertise may be required when local expertise is not available and in the event this expertise does not fulfill requirements under the terms of reference.

The computer program for the data base has already been designed and the program is currently being tested.