Challenges of the Socio-Cultural Development of Korça’s District Under the Territorial Reform of 2015

Our topic aims to treat social and cultural challenges of Albania, especially of Korça’s region within the administrative and territorial reform of the 2015. Over the ten or eleven years following the decentralisation reforms undertaken in 2000, the country has undergone a number of demographic, social and economic changes. The demographic map of Albania has changed as a result of people’s internal migration and emigration abroad.

One of the main challenges for the current local government in Albania is to fulfill the growing expectations of citizens for better services and governance, social and cultural development of people’s life. Decentralisation and urbanization have resulted in higher pressure on local government units for funding public services and facilitating economic development.

Overall the country’s achievements over the past two decades in terms of both economic growth and political reform have been impressive. However, the benefits of economic development have not been evenly distributed and the pattern of the Gini index since 1997 seems to demonstrate an inherent trend towards inequality within Albania’s growth patterns. The country’s Gini coefficient is the third highest in the region which would seem to indicate a need to recalibrate the national development strategy towards a more equitable model.

In order to examine these social and cultural consequences and need to reconstruct central/local interventions we have conducted analyzes, interviews and questionnaires with Korça’s people that show what has really changed in the lives of people and how they perceive these changes.