Foreign aid’s impact on Albania is scrutinized, revealing corruption and dependency despite infrastructure gains; better oversight is needed.
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An essay by William Easterly critiques foreign aid for focusing on financial amounts and promises rather than effective execution, noting a lack of market feedback allows failed approaches to continue. This critique is applied to Albania’s EU accession goals, where many societal sectors are unprepared despite ambitious national plans. While European assistance has successfully built infrastructure like roads and courts in Albania, it also presents issues such as crowding out local initiatives and dependency.
The text details how foreign aid can foster a cycle of quasi-parasitism. Specific problems include weak oversight allowing strategic assets to generate private gain while causing public liabilities, and the stifling effect of imports on vulnerable sectors like agriculture. The IPARD II project in Albania serves as a case study of corruption, where government agencies manipulated application processes—requiring small farmers to pay for services that should have been free—allowing connected entities to siphon funds through fake bids and inflated costs. Similar issues exist elsewhere, such as the “incinerators” scandal and fraud in Italy’s agricultural subsidies.
The author argues that state institutions are not weak but are instead powerful and coordinated toward profiting from aid. To improve outcomes, foreign aid institutions like the EU must shift focus to real-time monitoring of values and integrity, scrutinize NGOs rigorously, and adopt proven models. A successful project example in Albanian agriculture involved direct asset transfer to beneficiaries with close international oversight. Recommendations for future aid include publishing grant data openly, managing funds through EU institutions rather than state actors, implementing quarterly independent site checks, and banning paid consultancy services for projects.
