Building the Future in Albania: Country Partnership Framework 2015-19

The World Bank Group's new Country Partnership Framework for Albania for the period 2015-2019 supports reforms in key areas that can help Albania maintain macroeconomic stability, create better conditions for private sector growth, and provide better public services for its citizens.

The CPF has been developed under a new World Bank Group approach to country engagement and through extensive consultations with the government authorities, business associations, civil society, development partners, and beneficiaries throughout Albania.

This strategy is based on available evidence and expertise and focused on achieving the goals of reducing poverty and increasing prosperity across Albanian society in a sustainable manner.

The overall goal of the World Bank Group's new strategy for Albania is to support the country's aspiration for achieving equitable growth and integration into the European Union.  

Over the coming five-year period, the World Bank Group will focus its support to Albania in the following three key areas.

1. Restore macroeconomic balances. The program in this area will support Albania’s efforts to improve fiscal sustainability, strengthen public investment management and improve financial stability that are necessary for fiscal stability.  
2. Create conditions for accelerated private sector growth. The program activities will support the Government’s reforms through interventions that promote growth and enhance inclusion of the poor and the bottom forty percent of the population.  
3. Strengthen public sector management and service delivery. The support in this area will focus on increasing efficiency of public service delivery and on improving equity and access to basic social services for all Albanian citizens. 

These focus areas are based on five fundamental priorities identified as having the greatest potential impact on growth and poverty reduction. These priorities emerged from the Systematic Country Diagnostic, a comprehensive assessment carried out by the World Bank that looked at Albania's key challenges constraining the country's growth and assessed potential opportunities for unleashing the country’s growth potential. These five focus areas are:

• Restoring fiscal sustainability, financial stability, and macroeconomic balance;
• Establishing a high-quality business environment that promotes firm growth and job creation;
• Providing clean energy efficiently, equitably, and sustainably;
• Formalizing and enhancing the inclusiveness and sustainability of the land market; and
• Enhancing governance, transparency and accountability of government.

Special attention in the strategy is also given to gender - in terms of analysis, monitoring, and interventions to narrow economic opportunity gaps for women, such as those related to land ownership or access to labor markets. Another area of special focus is the EU accession process – with the entire World Bank Group program geared toward promoting reforms and investments that can support Albania’s EU accession goals.

The World Bank Group will provide advice on policies that will enable faster and more inclusive growth in Albania, as well as the financial resources needed to address the country priorities in order to achieve results in these areas.