Agriculture is a main source of employment and income in the Albanian rural areas, contributing 21% to GDP in the country and representing 43.3% of the workforce (data W.B. 2014). Albania’s farming sector has been dominated by small private holdings since 1991, when peasant farmers disbanded the quasi-state collective farms.
 Despite the progress made so far, Albania is still challenged by low productivity of agriculture and underdeveloped rural areas. Farming is labour intensive with low levels of labour productivity and efficiency …

In Albania, SME’s employ more 80% of the labour population, compared to the EU average of 67%. Albanian SMEs provide about 68% of the country’s total value added, while the average in the EU is about 58%. Due to the fact that the Albanian economy is led by SMEs, it is expected that the projected economic upswing will result in increased SME employment and output growth.
In the last years, Albania has undertaken important reforms to improve the business environment. A …

Development aid and expertise have assumed special significance for many countries worldwide vis-a-vis their resource constraints and lack of capacity to plan, develop and implement projects and programmes. International donors and development organizations assist the developing and the under-developed world to overcome their obstacles to socio-economic progress, providing financial support, together with a wide range of technical and administrative facilities.
The European Union is the world’s leading donor working with partner countries across the globe. While the member states themselves are …

Innovation refers to the creation of new or significantly improved products, processes, marketing methods and organization structures that add value to markets, governments and the society. Investments in Research and Innovation (R&I) are driving long-term growth, and it is widely accepted that countries that invest in R&I are recovering faster from the current economic crisis.
While ideas need an innovation-friendly environment to grow and become products or services that will benefit citizens and economies, Albania faces multiple hurdles, like weaknesses in …

The backbone of an economy consists of sectors adding value through industrial and manufacturing activity; processing of materials or other inputs into goods deploying a hard asset infrastructure base contributes to the economy with a multiplier effect.
Due to its low mobility, the advantage of this hard asset infrastructure base turns into a challenge, resulting from either changes in the competitive landscape or reduced capacity of the economy in a given period to absorb all output from such sectors.
Actors in the …

Regional Administration plays an important role in improving the living standards of citizens, which is reflected in the wide range of its jurisdiction and responsibilities and includes the development of infrastructure and provision of services such as water, sanitation, transport infrastructure, public spaces, healthcare services, educational services, etc. Additionally, it has a key role on issues related to spatial planning, environmental protection, employment, disaster prevention. Good local governance is crucial to democratic participation, political dialogue, social cohesion and achieving economic …

Technology is probably the most influential factor contributing on a global scale to the economic and social context of our present and future. As such, technology driven sectors such as Telecoms, Information Technology, Media and Electronics are at the forefront of importance facing at the same time very significant challenges.
The migration from the physical to the digital world has effected major disruption across a large number of economic and social activities and has fostered the emergence of new business models …

Urban and spatial planning, as well as land development, consist, especially under current recession conditions, critical and essential prerequisites in the national effort of a country like Greece to exit crisis and return to growth track.
The challenges and needs in these sectors are many and complicated, mainly consisting of:

The integrated and complex spatial planning process, which should include all the individual plans and ensure alignment among National Spatial Planning Framework, the Special Spatial Planning Frameworks and the big cities’ Master …

It is well established that education is an important prerequisite for sustainable development and effective participation of citizens in socio-economic progress. This is highlighted by the fact that specific educational goals concerning reduction of early school leaving rates, below 10% and achieving at least 40% of 30-34–year-olds completing third level education are included in the “Europe 2020” agenda.
The long-term strategic objectives of EU education and training policies are:

Making lifelong learning and mobility a reality;
Improving the quality and efficiency of education …

Due to their direct relation to development, as expressed through growth and employment rates, transport systems and civil infrastructure exhibit dynamic trends and, therefore, complex challenges. Presently, the limited resources available in most areas require focused management to serve increasing demand, whereas the pronounced lack of public funding leads to an exploitation trend of PPP/Concession schemes for major civil infrastructure components. At the same time, persistent urbanisation in most of the developing world leads to pressing needs of efficient urban …