A critical review of the Albanian pathway in complying with the requirements of the EU integration process and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Абстракт

Albania is committed to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by United Nations (UN) in 2015. Since that year, several national and governmental reports have aimed at assessing current progress and performance of the country into achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as alignment and harmonisation of those goals with existing sectorial and cross-sectorial strategies and policies. By the other side, the EU has committed itself to delivering on the 2030 Agenda both within the Union and abroad, by placing the SDGs at the core of its international cooperation through cross-cutting projects, policies and initiatives. With regards to data, there are in place for further country-based reference: (a) a global UN SDG dashboard, (b) an EU list of SDG indicators (Eurostat) and (c) an Albanian SDG dashboard held by the Albanian Institute of Statistics (Instat). Currently, although progress has been made, there are still indicators for which data do not exist and problems of periodicity and disaggregation are still present. Additionally, public spending for SDGs remains low. Objective of this paper is to critically review the current institutional, financing, strategic and reporting framework with regards to the SDGs compliance and achievement in Albania. Preliminary results of the analysis show that harmonisation with SDGs is not sufficient to achieve significant and sustainable progress related to SDG indicators. As main challenges remain data and financing, integration of SDGs into the national policymaking framework would support the overall country’s performance and progress.