The Albanian Media Institute (AMI) was established by the end of 1995, thanks to the grant provided by DANIDA and the assistance of the Danish School of Journalism. After more than a decade AMI has been consolidated, constituting at present one of the main actors of civil society in Albania and one of most important journalistic training institutions in the Balkan region.

The mission of AMI is:

• to become a training centre for the journalists of Albania;
• to co-ordinate and support the activities related to the training of journalists and the  overall development of media in Albania;
• to undertake studies and projects in support of the development of the Albanian media;
• to establish relations with similar foreign and international organizations;
• to facilitate and make possible the increase of funds and adopt financial strategies       which assure long-term sustainability;
• to participate in the legislative processes in the field of media;
• to establish strong relations with the Faculty of Journalism at the Tirana University.
• to create special units for conducting opinion polls.
• Albanian Media Institute has succeeded in having a substantial support from the Swiss Development Agency, SOROS Foundation, IREX, and other partners and donors. This support has been materialized in organizing training courses in different fields of journalism, establishing and maintaining an Internet studio that offers free service to journalistic community, organizing joint activities, conferences, and roundtables, promoting media dialogue and developing media policies, as well as sharing the same facilities. 

Every year, approximately 300 Albanian journalists participate in the training courses of AMI. The Institute has established a team of about 15 Albanian trainers, who teach in most of the courses, organized by AMI. After years of work in cooperation with its donor community new training formats have been initiated and these formats serve today as models in other similar centers in the region.

At present, AMI is substantially engaged in media policy issues in Albania, such as the improvement of media legislation, Code of Ethics, various issues related to freedom of expression, access to information etc. In addition, the Institute has organized several research works, the most important one being  “Monitoring Albanian Media Landscape”. AMI has published within the last 5 years approximately 20 books in the fields of journalism, PR, etc, filling in this way the existing voids.

With the support of SDC, AMI has completed an extensive project in the field of PR, becoming one of the early pioneers in this area.

AMI has played an important role in regional projects, in particular after the SEENPM (a Network of 17 media centers of SEE) was established upon AMI’s initiative in 2000. AMI held the SEENPM Presidency during its first two years. 

AMI is presently member of several international organizations, such as EJTA (where it had one chair in the board for 2001- 2003), World Association of Newspapers, Reporting Diversity Network, etc.

In the last years AMI has also been engaged in activities that aim to foster a better understanding of children issues and their proper implementation. For example, AMI has partnered with UNICEF in training Albanian journalists on the coverage of children issues, children rights, as well as in the training of school students that participate in the children’s program “Troc”.