The Albanian regional governance system is based on both decentralization and deconcentration, each of them aiming at bringing services close to the public. To make the multilevel governance system work, the prefect is a keystone of public administration at the regional level. The paper is an analytical study case on the prefect’s institution in Albania, focusing on the challenges that prefects face, particularly related to their functions in supervising local government units. We decided to adopt a problem-oriented approach. Instead of a comprehensive picture of prefects, we focus on identifying concrete challenges as they are perceived by different stakeholders, analyzing their causes and proposing concrete measures that can address both....