Voluntary National Review on Sustainable Development Goals

The beginning of the era of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) in Albania followed a long and successful experience of eradicating extreme poverty and

reducing the risk of social exclusion, ensuring high quality basic universal education and promoting gender equality and empowerment of women Albania has embraced

the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development, designed to make a strong contribution to the attainment of Agenda 2030, and is fully committed to implementing

Agenda 2030 in the context of the National Strategy for Development and Integration (NSDI) and the European integration process Accession to the European Union (EU) is the overarching priority, and the most important strategic ambition of the country as the EU integration process has full political consensus and nationwide support as a sound way of achieving a

sustainable future for the people of Albania A series of successes in the European integration process, the latest being the European Commission (EC)’s unconditional

recommendation of April 2018 to open accession talks with the country, has been guided by the progress and completion of many complex and interrelated reforms,

including fve areas identifed as priorities in this process:

• Public administration reform, stable institutions and a modern, professional and depoliticised civil service

• Strengthening the independence, efciency and accountability of judicial institutions

• Increasing the fght against corruption

• Increasing the fght against organised crime

• Ensuring the protection of human rights, including property rights

The Albanian government has afrmed its full commitment to Agenda 2030 The coordination and leadership of the process is provided by the Inter-Ministerial Committee

on the SDGs, chaired by the deputy prime minister of Albania and comprising key government institutions, as well as other stakeholders from the business community, civil

society, academia and international organisations, including the technical support provided by the Department of Development and Good Governance in the Prime Minister’s Ofce,

the SDG Inter-Ministerial Technical Working Group and the contribution of the United Nations (UN) agencies in the country through their direct support, and the accelerators from the

MAPS (mainstreaming, acceleration and policy support) mission Albania’s Parliament has unanimously approved a resolution confrming the country’s commitment to Agenda

2030 as it plays an important role in monitoring achievement of the SDGs.