Albanians’ trust in international institutions declining, survey finds
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- Even with the decline, trust in the international institutions remains far higher than the national ones.
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TIRANA, Sept. 21, 2022 - Albanians continue to have more trust in international institutions than national ones, but trust in the European Union and other international bodies is declining, according to an annual survey published this week.
Albanians' trust in the European Union dropped to 71 percent from 75 percent a year ago and confidence in NATO fell to 73 percent, from 76 percent a year ago. Trust in UN institutions also dropped from 76 percent to 71 percent. The survey, Public Opinion Poll: Trust in Governance 2021 by IDM Albania, does not measure trust in specific partner countries’ institutions.
The downward trend of trust in international institutions happened during a period when the country's prime minister has shown increasingly critical tones toward foreign partners, especially the European Union, in relation to the obstacles and delays in the European integration process as well as lack of timely help to address pandemic needs.
Even with the decline, trust in the international institution remains far higher than the national ones, which continue to see dismal numbers, although they are seeing some increase in recent years.
In 2021, the central government had a trust level of 45 percent, local governments 44 percent, parliament 33 percent, while political parties 25 percent.
There was a slight increase in trust even in institutions that have historically enjoyed a low degree of public trust, such as the prosecutors and courts (from 24 percent to 28 percent) and political parties (from 20 percent to 26 percent).
The justice reform saw 35 percent of the surveyed Albanian population believe that it is being implemented properly, while 57 percent believe that justice reform will have a positive impact on the development of the country. In 2021, the proportion of citizens who felt that justice reform is being implemented properly improved by 6 pp, compared to 2020. Also, the percentage of respondents who feel that the reforms will have a positive impact on the development of Albania has increased by 4 pp in the last year.
In non-government institutions, Albanian citizens continued to perceive religious institutions (67 percent) as the most trusted domestic institutions, followed by educational institutions (57.1 percent), the armed forces (54.6 percent), and civil-society organizations (52.6 percent).
Other findings of the survey showed Albanias see their government institutions lacking transparency and accountability. More than half of surveyed Albanians perceived the central government (57.4 percent) and municipality (58.2 percent) as non-transparent. More than half of the Albanian population did not perceive central or local governments as accountable. Only 37.5 percent indicated that they see the central government as accountable and 38.6 percent saw the municipality as accountable. People without a regular monthly income were even less likely to perceive the central and local governments as accountable (27 percent and 31 percent respectively).
The majority of Albanian citizens (72.2 percent) also reported insufficient opportunities to participate in the decision-making process of public institutions.
Trust in the media remains low. During 2021, only one in four citizens believed that the information provided by Albanian media was accurate/true. Television (54 percent) remained the most popular media outlet, particularly among people living in rural areas (60 percent), although social media (29 percent) and online portals (10 percent) are growing in popularity as the primary source for news on current affairs, according to the survey.
The Trust in Governance Opinion Poll is an annual exercise to measure citizens’ trust in public institutions. Its ninth annual was conducted during November 2021, across the 61 municipalities of Albania, using a 2,500 randomly selected nationally representative sample, the authors noted.
The survey is done in the the framework of the project “Consolidation of Citizen-Centric Public Service Delivery in Albania” (CSDA), a donor pool fund implemented by the Government of Albania in partnership with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and with Austrian Development Cooperation (ADC) as a key contributor, together with UNDP.
