What might look like a progressive picture on Albania’s economy, does not cover the whole situation, that poverty and the country’s well-being are on the same parallel.
During an interview with the economic magazine Monitor.al, the Country Manager of World Bank, Emanuel Salinas, gave insights into Albania’s journey with the economic growth and regress, as well as typical situations out of the macroeconomics aspects.
“If we focus on the positive aspect, at the start of the pandemic, fast and decisive government action to support lives and livelihoods played a key role in helping the economy weather the initial lockdowns. Subsequently, the relatively quick normalization of economic activity enabled a strong recovery. Albania reopened for tourism. Significant construction activity – including reconstruction related to the 2019 earthquake – provided crucial support for the economy. But whenever we talk about good macroeconomic figures, I am very mindful that there are many individual realities and stories that are not captured in those percentages. I am painfully aware that many people could say ‘how can you talk about economic growth or recovery when I lost my job, or my son had to stop going to school or my daughter had to close her business, or my father had to leave the country to find a job abroad’,” said Salinas.
Salinas praised how Albania is handling these economic crisis and shifts, to the point where it might be seen as normalized.
“Albania has proven to be a very resilient economy and has weathered these crises in a much better form than other countries in the region. Also, when I walk in the streets of Tirana, I am often marveled by how ‘normal’ the situation feels. This is not a small feat considering how disruptive the pandemic has been to not only the economy, but also to day-to-day life in many countries in Europe and beyond,” he mentioned.
However, the latest World Bank’s report has revealed the impact of the social assistance modernization project which have been implemented with its support for several years by the government.
“The poverty rate in Albania has remained stubbornly high, despite periods of economic growth, even compared to other countries in the region. With a rate of about 29.3 percent of the population estimated in 2022, Albania’s absolute poverty rate (measured at 5.5 US dollars per person per day in purchasing power parity [PPP]) is currently almost double the rate of other countries in the Western Balkan, for which there are comparable recent data that assess poverty. The poverty rate appears to have decreased significantly between 2016 and 2018, but then the November 2019 earthquake, followed by the COVID‐19 pandemic, first reversed the trend and then slowed the rate of poverty reduction. What is noticeable is that the relationship between GDP growth and the poverty rate has often been negative in the past 20 years, the growth is not reflected in the well-being of the most vulnerable people in Albania,” the report states.
