After the accommodation in Durrës, on the first day of this meeting, Igablle Rogova, KWN Executive Director, in her opening speech thanked all the participants from the 24 municipalities that were present and for the joint work and commitment during the year we are leaving behind. She further presented a short history about Lobby for the Assembly members who were present for the first time, highlighting several successful advocacy initiatives.

Before the members of Lobby were divided into working groups to summarize the work and engagement on the issues raised by each municipality during 2017, Rogova informed the participants about the program of this three-day meeting, pointing out that the main purpose of this meeting is networking, solidarity and exchange of experiences with each other, thus creating co-operation between municipalities to improve the position of women and girls in the respective municipalities.

The second part was reserved for Mrs. Milva Ekonomin, Member of the Parliament of Albania, invited as a speaker for cooperation between women in politics and women’s organizations in Albania. Mrs. Ekonomi shared her experiences as a woman who had been working on finding and analysing various state statistics in Kosovo and Albania, as a woman part of civil society, as a minister and ultimately as a deputy in parliament. After her speech the attendees had the opportunity to ask questions about the issues they were interested in.

On the second day, after work in working groups, one representative of the municipality presented three main points for which they will be committed to work in 2018. Some of the planned advocacy initiatives are: Advocacy for young girls towards engagement in politics and their empowerment in political subjects; Advocate for equal division in managerial positions; Advocate for employment and sheltering for self-supporting mothers; Advocate for the economic empowerment of women through subsidies in municipalities; Advocate for problem solving in better quality access to health services for women; Advocate for scholarships or other important issues for the education of girls and women; etc.

The afternoon was reserved for discussion with the National Democratic Institute (NDI). "NDI does not only train for a few days, but there is continuity of work, and their participation today and the discussions that will be made are the continuation of our co-operation," said Ms. Rogova when presenting NDI.

Political Party Development Program Manager at NDI, Pranvera Lipovica, after presenting the work done with the Women’s Leadership Academy and the "Week of Women", emphasized to the attendees that regarding the work done with women, for NDI it is important that as many women are engaged in political life, whereby there is a work process for building the capacity of women and young people. The purpose of the NDI presence at this meeting was to hear women’s voices on the issues they think are important to be presented during the Week of Women 2018.

At the end of this meeting, the Lobby decided to send a press release to show dissatisfaction with the low representation of women in the formation of the new Government.

Witnessing again solidarity, Lobby’s women gathered 400 euros for Ina M., a woman from Pristina who needed help for her children after experiencing domestic violence.

This meeting was made possible by financial support from the Austrian Development Agency (ADA).