Rural Albania Research Articles

Covid-19 has only Temporarily Interrupted Social and Health Services in rural Albania in 2020

During the first and second wave of Covid-19 pandemics, Balkan countries were among the least affected areas of Europe, especially those having islands as naturally protected quarantine environment (Greece, Croatia, Cyprus, Malta), as well as countries with less tourism in Spring such as Montenegro, Albania, and Bulgaria Therefore, the health care system was not overwhelmed by Covid-19 infected patients and was able to continue on normal outpatient and inpatient bases This pilot population-based study in rural Albania shows only a low and temporary break of health and social services for just 1 month during the first wave, in April 2020

The impact of crop rotation and land fragmentation on farm productivity in Albania

We estimate the impact of land fragmentation and crop rotation on farm productivity in rural Albania. We employ stochastic production frontier estimation approach and Tobit regression on survey data collected among farm households in Albania in 2013. Our estimates suggest that land fragmentation improves farm efficiency likely because it allows a better use of household labour during the production seasons. Our estimates also suggest that crop rotation increases farm efficiency. However, the land fragmentation dominates the crop rotation in impacting farm efficiency.

The impact of crop rotation and land fragmentation on farm productivity in Albania

In this study, we estimate the impact of land fragmentation and crop rotation on farm productivity in rural Albania. We employ a stochastic production frontier estimation approach to survey data collected among farm households in Albania in 2013. Our estimates suggest that land fragmentation improves farm efficiency, probably because it permits a better use of household labour during the production seasons. Our estimates also suggest that crop rotation increases farm efficiency. However, the impact of land fragmentation on on farm efficiency is far more pronounced.

"Left Like Stones in the Middle of the Road": Narratives of Aging Alone and Coping Strategies in Rural Albania and Bulgaria.

We explore and compare older adults' lived experiences and coping strategies in two postcommunist countries-Albania and Bulgaria. Wholesale youth outmigration and economic and institutional regional decline have led to decaying rural areas where older adults become "abandoned." Aging alone, as couples or widowed, they are socially marginalized and in constant search for coping mechanisms which enable them to survive. We adopt a social-psychology theoretical framework which distinguishes between problem-focused and emotion-focused coping. Data include 28 in-depth interviews with older residents and participant observation in selected rural areas of the two countries. In both countries, rural social isolation is expressed as a lack of close family ties-mainly due to the removal through outmigration of children and grandchildren-and detachment from society at large. The most prevalent coping mechanism consists of practical and emotional support from non-kin ties, especially neighbors. Remittances help to resolve material needs, especially in Albania, where most rural young people migrate abroad. In both settings, a range of emotion-focused coping strategies were identified, including perceptions of decreased needs, lowered expectations about relationships, and satisfaction at the achievements of the younger generations. Similarities between research findings in Albania and Bulgaria reflect their shared political and institutional history. Although few, differences relate to a combination of contrasting migration and cultural patterns. In both settings problem- and emotion-focused adaptive strategies are overlapping, and successful aging efforts seem to be of a communal rather than an individualistic nature.

Saving Women's Lives From Cervical Cancer: Promoting a Cost-Effective Cervical Cancer Screening Tool in Rural Albania

Background and context: The WHO has presented that more than 90% of deaths from cervical cancer happened in low and middle-income countries. Albania is one of them. Albania has a national cervical cancer screening program. However, the program is not well-promoted and the service is not always available at the primary public health care level. The situation worsens when it comes to rural areas. In 2016, to bridge the gap and achieve health equity the Albanian Center for Population and Development (ACPD) initiated a series of activities to promote the utilization of visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) and cryotherapy for the first time as a pilot study in rural Albania. ACPD sees this as a health priority to strengthen the existing national screening program through advocacy with the Ministry of Health and Social Protection (MoHSP). Aim: To enable VIA and cryotherapy provision in rural Albania to expand cervical cancer screening by advocating for its integration into the national cervical cancer screening program. Strategy/Tactics: The strategy applies a client-centered and bottom-up approach. The changes are driven through four sections, namely: context understanding, providers' engagement, partnership strengthening, and sustainability development (Fig 1). Program/Policy process: Following the proposed strategy, four main approaches were developed. · Demand generation: ACPD promoted relevant cervical cancer prevention and treatment information as well as redressed misconceptions through developing education materials and carrying out education sessions. · Provide services in rural settings: ACPD engaged different health providers into the VIA and cryotherapy training and institutional protocol development. · Collaborate with key stakeholders: ACPD worked closely with stakeholders, such as civil society organizations (CSOs), media, and health facilities. · Provide medical evidence to affect national policy-making processes: ACPD provided strong evidence to support the integration of VIA and cryotherapy into the existing cervical cancer screening program. Outcomes: In line with aforementioned process, the project succeeded to establish an effective model improve national cervical cancer screening program. All achievements and outcomes are summarized in Table 1. What was learned: The proposed strategy enabled VIA and cryotherapy in rural Albania. From clients' perspectives, this cost-effective cervical cancer screening tool is well-accepted, and most women were thrilled by the idea that the precancerous lesions could be screened and eliminated at the same visit. It is evident that ACPD distributed this desired service in rural Albania through collaborating with key stakeholders, including media, CSOs and public health facilities. ACPD still works on integrating VIA and cryotherapy into the national cancer screening program to reduce cervical cancer deaths. [Figure: see text][Table: see text]

Land fragmentation and production diversification: A case study from rural Albania

We analyze the impact of land fragmentation on production diversification in rural Albania. Albania represents a particularly interesting case for studying land fragmentation as the fragmentation is a direct outcome of land reforms. The results indicate that land fragmentation is an important driver of production diversification of farm households in Albania. We find that land fragmentation stimulates significantly more diversification for subsistence farm households than for market-oriented households. Our findings have two key policy implications: (i) the consolidation policies that relocate and enlarge plots would have a significant impact on reducing agricultural production diversification; and (ii) land fragmentation contributes to the nutritional security improvement by increasing the variety of foodstuffs produced by subsistence farm households.

Youth Employment in Rural Albania: A Theoretical Approach

Employment plays a central role in the social integration of young people. Young people in rural areas are the future of agriculture and other rural industries, but often lack the guidance and support necessary to fully contribute to the development of their communities, thereby fuelling the vicious cycle of rural underdevelopment and poverty. This study aims to gain a better understanding of the youth employment challenges faced in rural areas by bringing together in group discussions with stakeholders (farmers, entrepreneurs in rural areas, associations, etc.). The conclusions from this assignment will feed to a baseline analysis of youth involvement in rural labour market and skills development required and will identify areas where rural development programs can be targeted to increase their contribution to employment creation. This will also suggest formulation of policy recommendations on stimulating new sources of employment, and the conditions for success in stimulating employment in rural areas. The proposed methodology was developed through Desktop Research and direct interviews with focus groups.

Status quo bias of agrarian land structures in rural Albania

This article provides a micro-analysis of land market development after two decades of Albanian transition. We use data from a survey conducted in four Albanian villages during May 2013. The results indicate that land markets are highly rigid with almost no structural changes occurring over the last two decades. Sale markets are almost non-existent owing to formal and informal regulations and prevalence of subsistence farming in rural Albania. The status quo established by the 1991 land reform determines the present ownership structure. Rental markets are more sizable but, owing to property rights insecurity and monitoring problems of absentee landowners, the vast majority of rental arrangements are between family relatives.

Gendering remittances in Albania: a human and social development perspective

Gender issues are of central importance to both migration and development. The study of migrant remittances has been at the heart of the fast-growing literature on migration and development. And yet, surprisingly, remittances and gender issues have rarely been brought together as a subject of inquiry. Based on recent research in south-east Albania, our paper aims to address this gap. We do this in three ways. First, we examine who sends, who receives, and who uses remittances, from a gender perspective. Second, we go beyond looking at financial transfers, to consider non-monetary remittances. Third, we analyse how gender relations and gendered social norms shape migration and remitting patterns; and how these, in turn, affect gender relations in migrant households and in origin communities. Although the unit of analysis is the transnational household, spanning rural Albania and urban Greece, the different experiences of individual migrant women and men are central. These perspectives in turn inform recommendations for researchers, policymakers and practitioners.

Are Internal Migrants in Albania Leaving for the Better?

While Albania is more known for its massive international migration flows, internal migration is also noteworthy and, more important, understudied. This paper tries to fill a gap in the migration literature by assessing the impact of internal migration on household wellbeing. Albania is an ideal case to study the phenomenon, since no migration, whether internal or international, was allowed before 1990 and, therefore, it constitutes a quasiexperimental setting. The study relies on a unique dataset, the 2005 Albania Living standards Measurement Study (ALSMS) with a focus on the migrant households oversampled in periurban Tirana, which will be compared to rural households not migrated internally. We take advantage of detailed information on the residence duration of internal migrants, housing and wealth variables for 1990, as well as the current local economic and social conditions they are exposed to. The aim is to assess whether wellbeing in terms of income, consumption, health, education, and housing has changed owing to internal migration. Descriptive statistics confirm earlier studies on migrants in peri-urban Tirana and show that migrant households live in poor dwelling conditions, are employed in irregular and unstable jobs and experience low levels of health and schooling. However, their total per-capita income is significantly higher than for rural households, while differences in terms of consumption are unclear. Further analysis on the impact of internal migration is based on two econometric techniques. The propensity-score-matching (PSM) approach and a two-step instrumental variable (IV) procedure - through a zero inflated count model at the first stage, an innovative element in the migration literature - are used to gauge a systematic difference between rural migrant households in the destination communities with similar counterparts in rural Albania who did not move, taking their pre-migration wealth and living conditions into account. Empirical results confirm that households which moved to peri-urban Tirana experienced an income gain, while the differences in terms of consumption are lower, overall. The revenue increase is mostly due to higher but irregular wages which do not seem to completely offset rising living expenses (e.g. food, water, housing), as well as costs not occurring in rural areas.

‘Does your granny eat grass?’ On mass migration, care drain and the fate of older people in rural Albania

AbstractOlder people have been the main social casualties of the collapse of the Albanian communist system and the ensuing mass emigration of younger generations since 1990. Some have had to forage for survival on a near‐starvation diet, making broth from grass and weeds. For others, remittances from emigrant children ensure adequate material well‐being, but a loss of locally‐based trans‐generational care and of intimate family relations occurs. Rates of emigration have been highest in the southern uplands, where our fieldwork took place. Migration has been mainly to Greece, but also to Italy and elsewhere. Interviews with elderly ‘residual households’ ‐ single people and couples ‐ reveal stories of loneliness and abandonment; cross‐generational rupture of hitherto tight family structures is seen as emotionally painful because of the impossibility of enjoying mutual benefits of care sustained by geographical proximity. Profoundly upsetting is the denial of the practice of grand‐parenting, which the older generation see as their raison d'être. Cost of travel, visa regimes and emigrants’ irregular status conspire to prevent international visits. Finally, we examine various strategies of overcoming the ‘care drain’ produced by this situation, one of which is for older people to try to join their migrant children and grandchildren abroad.

Albania Today: A Portrait of Post-Communist Turbulence by Clarissa De Waal (review)

REVIEWS 175 De Waal, Clarissa.AlbaniaToday: A Portrait of Post-Communist Turbulence. I. B. Tauris in association with The Centre for Albanian Studies, London, 2005. viii + 268 pp. Illustrations. Appendices. Notes. Bibliography. Index. ?45?00? ALBANIANS had a hard life under Communism. Under post-Communism, it grew worse. This account of the immediate post-Communist period (from I99I to about 2003) gives a vivid picture of the bleak conditions Albanians faced, and the spirit of endurance and resignation with which they faced them. Clarissa de Waal carried out her ethnographic fieldwork from I99I to I992, startingin Tirana and moving on to the ruralareas.She aims to 'convey the social process experienced by Albanians during the first decade of post-communism'. The book sets out to examine the effects of political and economic events on the survivalstrategiesof individualsand households, and in particularto provide 'an ethnographic record of customary practice in a province (Mirdita)notable for its culturalcontinuity'.It succeedsadmirablyin these aims, so long as the reader is content with accuratelyobservedpersonal impressionsrather than statisticsand documents. The firstchapter gives a clear overview of the main political and economic developments of the decade. The harshnessof life in rural Albania pervades this account, evoking the feeling of a Kadare novel. She writes, 'in the spring of I999, Albania's role in the Kosovo crisis, the readiness to respond unstintingly, the enormous generosity towards so many refugees, brought internationalacclaim. But once the crisiswas over, the flatnessof unemployment , the absence of prospects,hit the population with even more force than before [.. .] The body of a 25-30 year old man drowned off the coast of Vlora had been found and brought to the morgue. The newsreader concluded: "The refrigeratorin the morgue is not working"'. The perspectiveis remorselesslythe worm's eye view. But the observationis acute. De Waal describesthe adaptabilityof formerpartymembers in Tirana: 'Most foreigners [...] rented flats from members of the former Communist elite who were strikinglyfree of any ideological hang-ups about forming a rentier class.' The main theme is life in the countryside,and in particularthe impact of the de-collectivization of land and the rapid emigration from the villages which followed. There is a fascinatingaccount of the reappearanceof customary law and its adaptation to new conditions. De Waal notes that the Kanun was observed even in the land commissions that were set up by the state to redistributethe land, and members of the Socialist and Democratic parties treatedit with equal respect.She describesa gradualloss of confidence in state law, combined with general demoralizationand dwindling hope for employment . As robbery and violence against the person increased and the police stood aside, wolves began to stalkthe Albanian landscape. The breakdownof public services was almost complete, and the effects on ordinarypeople are very apparent. De Waal followed some households who migrated from the villages to the coastal plains and the urban shanties.Here there was 'protracteduncertainty, I76 SEER, 85, I, 2007 an insecurityof tenurewhich speltterriblehardship'.Although some squatters earned enough to buy houses and land legally, the majority could not, and resistedgovernment officialswho tried to evict them. The book gives a good account of education in Albania and notes that educational experience has a strong impact on life outcomes. Depressingly, post-Communist Albania has not sustained the Communist regime's impressive investment in education. Many teachers have been forced to leave Albania because their wages are too low. Many children fail to attend school and school-books are in poor supply. Without the safety valve of large scale emigration to Greece and Europe and the sending of remittances from abroad, conditions would have been even worse. The author's sobriquet, 'agitated stagnation', accuratelyconveys the Albanian reality of this decade. The book is very well written and its judgements are sharp and wry. But readers who want to find the big themes laid out analyticallywill have to excavate among the detailsfor themselves.It is not even easy to find the parts of the book dealing with the towns, the villages and the shanties.The organization follows the author'stravels,but there is little structureotherwise. The index is of limited value. Chapter headings such as 'Developments' and 'Village Life' give little away. Despite this, the book gives a strong and...

Orphan pensioners and migrating grandparents: the impact of mass migration on older people in rural Albania

Since 1990, Albania has witnessed rural out-migration on a massive scale, both to other countries, chiefly Italy and Greece, and internally to Tirana and other major towns. The scale of this migration has disrupted the multi-generational rural social and kinship systems that, before 1990, displayed strong and coherent family bonds, and simultaneously accommodated paternalistic state directives and were supported by welfare provision for all members of the population. The sudden political, social and rural dislocations that followed the end of the communist regime have made older people particularly vulnerable: many have been left behind by their emigrant children, creating the phenomenon of socially-isolated ‘elderly orphans’. While the migrants' remittances cushion this social isolation, the loss of children and grandchildren through emigration has undermined older people's self-respect and raison d'être in Albanian family life. This paper, based on fieldwork and interviews in regions of heavy out-migration in northern and southern Albania, examines the human impact of emigration on the older people who have been left behind as well as their coping mechanisms, one being to follow their children abroad to care for the grandchildren, enabling the ‘middle generation’, working-age parents both to engage in paid work.

Patterns of Agrarian Transition

Karen MacoursUniversity of California, Berkeley, and Katholieke Universiteit LeuvenJohan F. M. SwinnenEuropean Commission and Katholieke Universiteit LeuvenI. IntroductionEconomic reforms have induced important output and productivity changesin the agricultural sectors of transition countries (TCs). There are, however,large differences between the countries in terms of the direction and themagnitude of these changes. For example, agricultural output increased con-siderably in the East Asian TCs, while there was a large output fall in theCentral and East European countries (CEECs) and the former Soviet Union(FSU) during transition (fig. 1).

Household structures in Albania in the early 20th century

This article attempts to shed light on household structures in Albania based on the census of 1918. Quantitative data enable the investigation of patterns of household formation and marriage in a region where such research previously has been missing. The results confirm eastern European marriage patterns for women but not for men in Albania. Northern Albania lies in the core zone of the Balkan patriarchy and joint family households have prevailed in rural Albania, despite a tendency toward frequent divisions of households among brothers. Most important, there existed a great variety of types of households in different villages in Albania in 1918.

L'agriculture albanaise : de la coopérative à l'exploitation de survie

Albanian agriculture : from the co-operative to subsistence farming. After 45 years of increasingly constrictive agricultural collectivization, the fall of the communist régime in Albania has, since 1990, resulted in the almost total fragmentation of co-operatives and state farms into 379,000 family farms, with an average holding of 1.85 hectare - a phenomenon unique in Eastern Europe. But the disorganization of the market, and the irrigation systems, seems for the time being to be condemning the new owners to a subsistence economy, as witness the drop in production, and the preference given to small-scale animal husbandry. Far from providing a solution to the problem of over-population in rural Albania, the agricultural reform is being accompanied by a massive emigration to Greece and Italy, which in its turn is likely to bring about changes in the new agrarian structures and agricultural systems.