Looking solely at the tree one might just as well miss the forest…
Tangled in a myriad of political crisis and short term bursts of scandals, many are justified to miss the real systemic challenges that are piling up and that will determine the course of the country’s future. Silently and decisively hundreds of young Albanians, students, professionals, workers fill in their applications, learn the languages and purchase their tickets out.
Germany emerged as the key destination in 2016 and has consolidated ever since. The symbolic joke in Tirana is that “you won’t ever find an empty chair in a German language course in this city.” Despite several programs encouraging reentry and reintegration, the trend grows only upward.
The demographic challenge made up mostly by migration, and recently also by falling birth numbers, will be the key problem for Albania’s public finances, healthcare system, welfare mechanisms for the elderly and so much more. It will be the key obstacle to social progress and to the revitalization and safeguarding of democracy.
Numerous observations have identified that for quite some time now, salaries and money are not the only reasons to leave, as they were in the past. Increasingly people are choosing to leave because they don’t see things improving, they are not content with the trends they can witness manifesting in the country’s public sphere.
What citizens need as an alternative to leaving is real hope. And real hope is made up of one sole ingredient: good governance.
Let’s take just one simple recent example. The proposed new map of the judicial system in Albania sets only one Appeals Court located in Tirana. One more crucial service that citizens can approach only in the capital. In a time where other cities in the country desperately need incentives to keep their citizens set, the justice reform takes away a very important institution and forces people to travel to the already congested capital. The access to justice right is significantly affected for those who have limited mobility and travel means.
The reason behind the massive internal migration in Albania has always been the lack of employment and of basic services such as education and healthcare. This adds exactly to that perception of immediacy to depart. And when people see the need to get up and leave they might just as well leave the country altogether.
You will find frequently in recent articles that the stagnant process of EU integration and the dwindling hopes of accession are dimming the hopes of citizens for the future. However integration is about establishing and strengthening institutions and practices of good governance, reforms are just the steps to get to this objective.
National and international stakeholders in Albania need to awaken at the need to rethink and repurpose reforms in order to give citizens hope and a reason to stay. This means making a fundamental break with the “check the box” reform mentality that have been prevalent so far.
