During 2024 and up to October 2025, the Strong Municipalities project made measured advances across all its components. In the first component: Municipal service delivery, the Strong Municipalities (BtF as the Albanian acronym usually used to refer to the project) continued to support municipalities in drafting and implementing the service improvement plans for waste management. BtF also continued contributing to the draft law on waste management, though late changes, that signal centralization of the landfill operation, introduced uncertainty. The preschool education interventions continued with capacity building to implement measures and draft service improvement plans, while laying the groundwork for a sustainable exit by the end of 2025. Municipalities began implementing priority measures, including socially sensitive actions to enhance access, quality, and inclusiveness. In parallel, policy inputs are being developed, shaped by municipal feedback and collaboration with systemic actors like National Agency of Municipalities of Albania (NAMA), which will provide the basis for a national dialogue on decentralization, sustainable preschool service improvement and the draft law on preuniversity education. The Municipal councils component continued strengthening council secretariats and the transparency of municipal councils. However, mostly due to the national elections, a drop in the councils performance was noticed. During 2025 arrangements were made for fostering improved cooperation with the National Information and Data Protection Commissioner. Gender and social inclusion committees, together with Local Alliances of Women Councilors, secured €3.48 million for 37 municipal initiatives in 35 municipalities. Also, the gender barometer was implemented in 61 municipalities giving a good overview of the implementation of the legal framework for gender in municipalities. The intervention provides regularly gender-disaggregated data about participation in the project, beneficiaries and gender equality related activities. During the first half of 2025, the development of the Performance Management System (PMS) and the Performance Based Grants Scheme (PBGS) headed towards completion and approval. In cooperation with National Agency for Support to Local Governance (AMVV), the BtF prepared an extension of the list of indicators for the PMS and informed municipalities about the upcoming Performance Based Grants System in a series of regional meetings. Following the elections, relevant government approvals accelerated the progress in these areas, helping to regain momentum. BtF also supported the establishment of several forums as part of NAMA (performance, local leadership and council fora). Finally, the establishment of the Local Governance Academy was delayed during the election campaign, although most of the work was done successfully during 2024, especially with designing the management and funding structures and instruments and the elaboration of the main legal aspects for the new entity. In July the government approved the documentation, paving the way for the actual establishment in the second half of 2025. Throughout the first semester of 2025, BtF has increased efforts to mainstream EU accession across its activities. BtF provided support for the preparation of key bilateral meetings with the European Union, notably for the meeting of the Joint Consultative Committee Albania Committee of Regions (JCC) in May 2025. Also, BtF supported the AMVV and municipal actors to include EU accession priorities within its set of performance indicators of the Performance Measurement System (PMS). This will allow municipalities to report on their progress in alignment with EU standards. On an aggregate level the results have been as follows: Indicator 0.1: Trust in local governments At the impact level, trust in local governments remains the primary indicator for assessing the success of the BtF intervention. While this trust is influenced by multiple factors beyond the projects control, results show a positive trend. According to an external survey from IDRA in July 2025, between 2024 and June 2025, public trust in local governance rose from 63% to 66%, exceeding both annual and phase targets. Indicator 0.2: Municipal councilors represent local communities. Similarly, the proportion of citizens who believe municipal councils represent local communities grew from 62% in 2024 to 64% in 2025. These achievements demonstrate a more positive citizens perception of local governance responsiveness and representativeness. This increased trust in local governance applies to the trust in municipal councilors as well. Indicator 0.3: Citizens are satisfied with waste management and preschool education services. Citizen satisfaction with waste management and preschool education is measured through the same survey as trust in governance. The June 2025 results show a notable rise in satisfaction with waste management, from 70% in December 2024 to 74% in June 2025, with higher ratings in BtF supported municipalities (77%) than in others (66%). Preschool services recorded the largest gain, climbing from 80% to 86% over the same period, and again scoring higher in BtF supported LGUs (89%) compared to the national average (77%). Indicator 0.4: Number of people participating in and influencing public service provision. In the first half of 2025, 8,127 individuals contributed to shaping public service provision, reaching levels close to the projects annual targets. Of these, 42% (3,413) were women and 18% (1,462) were from vulnerable groups, including Roma, Egyptians, single mothers, and elderly individuals on welfare. Engagement took place through online surveys, public consultations, and community forums, enabling citizens to voice concerns and recommendations directly to municipal authorities. Several municipalities developed preschool education service improvement plans with active input from vulnerable groups, including rural residents and the Roma community. Half Year Project Progress Report 2025 show that BtF has achieved or is on track achieving the majority of indicators for up to 2025. Specifically, 30 indicators have already been achieved or exceeded 15 indicators are on track 11 indicators are not achieved yet. Overall, this means that 80% of the indicators for 2025 are already achieved or progressing as planned. These results demonstrate strong performance and steady progress towards the projects objectives, while also highlighting areas where additional attention and support will be required in the second half of the year.