While COVID-19 poses a number of potential problems for households and the housing sector in general, “it also offers an opportunity to re-evaluate the policy mistakes which have been made in recent years,” writes Cédric Van Styvendael, President of Housing Europe, the Federation for Public, Cooperative and Social Housing, and Mayor of Villeurbanne in the latest article of Friends of Europe.

Housing Europe was invited to speak at the workshop ‘National Housing Policy in Albania: Financing for affordable housing and the role of housing agencies’ which was held on Thursday 18 of June. This online workshop was organized by the Albanian Ministry of Economy and UNECE, in cooperation with Housing Europe, UN-Habitat, UNDP Tirana and the Union for Mediterranean. The objective of the workshop was to discuss the challenges and opportunities of housing finance and the present and future role of the National Housing Agency (NHA) in Albania based on relevant international best practices. The outcomes will be used for the revision of the National Housing Strategy of Albania and the future role of the NHA and for developing local housing plans for three pilot municipalities in Albania.