Why are professional cadres leaving Albania?

Orestret Cipa, 29, is head of the 24 Administrative Units Co-ordination Sector, which has Tirana City Hall, the largest in Albania, with more than 757. He doesn't know if he'll continue working in Baski or not in the coming year, 2018.

In the first days of January, he will be interviewed by the Office for Consultative Affairs at the American Embassy in Tirana after winning the application in American Lottery to live and work legally in the US.

There are large spaces in Tirana City to grow professionally to enrich experiences. Work in Baski enables me to get to know the problems citizens have and to see how things work in reality. Working in Tirana City is an excellent option”, says of DW, Orest Cipa.

But he's trying to leave this opportunity -- even though he himself calls it brilliant- to go towards the unknown, the American dream. Educated at the University of Tirana for journalism, he has performed a 3-year-old MBA for Justice and International Relations at Shanghai University, with good work experiences inside and outside Albania, has established his family, is the parent of a young girl. However, he does not feel fulfilled in Tirana. His glass in Albania is half empty.

There are many factors that led me to apply to win American Lotharia and left Albania. There are economic factors, but others have nothing to do with the economy. There is a slow social development, emancipator, democratizing. For example, I feel a decline in weight, the power of citizens who ask for an accounting, and want a greater role. The corruption index is still quite high, among the highest in the Western Balkans. This is where even a disability report, when you are disabled, should be taken with a friend. Of course, the higher the corruption, the higher the percentage of educated people seeking to leave. Corruption gains ground at the expense of building a merit-based society. There are other factors related to daily life”, says Cipa.

Brain Drain-Flighting of “Turire” from Albania with disturbing dimensions

The other factors identify the Rama 2 government itself. In the National Strategy for Diaspora and Migration, 2018-2024, along with economic factor, have also been identified as such factors as low public safety, the lack of trust of citizens in improving the situation in the country, where corruption and organised crime paralyse the normal functioning of state institutions.

In the National Strategy, mentioned earlier, it is noted that the brain drain phenomenon, known as “Brain Drain”, shown in 1990, shortly after the fall of the communist regime, has continued during the difficult post-communist transition, and from year to year its size has become disturbing. That is because brain drain involves not only academics or qualified persons in other areas.

A large number of Albanian students go to Italy and Greece, and then the country's rout goes towards Germany, the US and Canada”, the document of the new Diaspora Ministry is noted.

There are no official figures in Albania regarding the number of academics, specialists, intellectual elites who have left to live and work in the West. The two favourite US and Canadian destinations across the Atlantic have put brain-taking into the system through annual lottery. While in Germany, qualified doctors and nurses are going to live and work legally because they need them. Approximate figures point to the removal of 1/3 of Albania's population.

Heavy Effects for Albania

The removal of intellectuals ' cream and especially youth has serious consequences: Albania loses most of its human capital, its economic and social development locomotive. The departure of youth is shrinking production activity and efficiency in the private sector and slowing Albania's EU approach process, the process assessed as the catalyst for social emancipulation, law enforcement and the carrying out of major reforms.

“E knows that Albania's departure of people will have an extraordinary cost in the country's economic and social progress. But when there's no condition to develop your career and follow your vocalization of any kind, you have nothing left but to leave. Think of the youth that lives in small cities of Cavaja, Tepelena, Himara, Laz, etc., where nothing happens and where there is no work, what can they do but ask to leave?”, says Orest Cipa.

The strategy for “Brain Gain” to win and maintain “trurine” in Albania

To seek personal fulfillment, to aspire to a better life is one of the basic human rights when it happens without breaking the laws and rules of host countries. The Rama 2 government in drafting the National Strategy to halt the phenomenon of “Brain Drain” and turn it into “Brain Gain” has established the promotion and promotion of temporary and county immigration for qualified and talented individuals.

That goal will serve agreements with the US and Canada to promote voluntary return to Albania of qualified immigrants. They will be given the opportunity to come to Albania and stay for little time for consultations, lectures, training, which will enable simultaneously recording all intellectual capacities abroad.

While talented young people and young women will be offered scholarships to study abroad and jobs when they finish their studies.