Civil society has made a point out of influencing economic, social and political developments. Issues that have constantly come under its attention are those that relate to protection of human rights, the building of necessary public consensus, encouraging civic participation in reform design and implementation, increase of transparency and accountability of the public sectors, etc.

To improve the quality of new Albanian democracy, civil society must strive to strengthen its structures so that they may take a pro-active stance in connecting citizens with the state while mitigating the state’s tendency to force individuals to conform to government.

In this context, over 2006-2008 OSFA will work to develop the capacities of civil society to strengthen civic involvement and social responsibility through the promotion of civic action and effective relations of the third sector with the state and politics. OSFA has joined forces with MJAFT, Partners Albania and other organizations to achieve these aims.

Some of the objectives guiding projects under the civil society program areas include:

• Improvement of the legal framework governing the sector with special emphasis on laws and by laws strengthening lawfulness, accountability, and image of the non profit and non governmental organizations,
• Increase of civic participation in policy and decision making,
• Increase of the sustainability of the sector and transfer of civil society ownership from foreign donations to local resources.

Pursuant to these objectives OSFA strives to achieve the following results:
- strengthened institutional capacities of NPO-s/NGO-s in aspects of organizational, advocacy, monitoring and lobbying operations of the civil society aimed at improving the citizens’ quality of life;
- increased independence of the sector from the politics and strengthened credibility and integrity in the eyes of the public;
- developed self-regulating standards of non profit and non governmental organizations which produce improvements of its reputation with the public.