The Government of Albania (GoA) has recently gazetted a ‘Decision on establishing and organisation and functioning of the national agency for protected areas and regional administration for protected areas'. The Decision envisages the establishment of a National Agency of Protected Areas (NAPA) as a public state budget entity subordinate to the Ministry of Environment (MoE). The expectation of the GoA is that the establishment of this agency would, over the long-term, result in a significant improvement in the overall management effectiveness of the country's system of protected areas, covering 460,060ha of marine and terrestrial habitats.While this Decision makes provision for the NAPA to source funding from the state budget, donors, delivery of ‘services' and ‘other legal sources', the current funding baselines for the PA system, and the capacities to administer and improve PA revenue streams, are still well below the levels required to ensure that the protected area system can properly serve its function as an important tool to protect biodiversity. So, if the NAPA is to fulfil its protected area mandate, it will need to have the ability to: (i) secure sufficient, stable and long-term financial resources for protected areas; (ii) allocate these resources in a timely manner and appropriate form to cover the full costs of protected areas; and (iii) ensure that the protected areas are managed effectively and efficiently with respect to conservation and other complementary objectives.This project seeks to assist the GoA in reducing existing funding gaps for the system of protected areas, improving the management of individual protected areas, improving cost-efficiencies in individual protected areas and building the financial management capacities of protected area staff in the NAPA.