Natural resources don’t create development — policies do

In a country like Albania, where nature has been generous and lavish with us, giving us mountains, rivers and water sources, oil and minerals, a coastline and a coveted geostrategic position, it is paradoxical that we have still not become an economic success story.
Instead, after 30 years of transition, Albania is still at a developmental crossroads, with natural wealth unused in a sustainable way, with weak institutions, and with a public policy that is often more focused on dividing the “cake” than growing it.

The illusion of abundance
For decades, public and governmental discourse has used the rhetoric of “great natural potential” to create an illusion of future development.
But reality is cold, because neither oil reserves, nor minerals, nor natural tourism have turned into engines of sustainable development, since our governments, in most cases, have not built sustainable, independent, and visionary institutions that would channel this wealth toward general well-being.
Natural resources are indeed a possible advantage, but not a sufficient one. They turn into real welfare only if accompanied by smart policies and functional institutions. Otherwise, they become sources of insecurity, inequality, and slow development.

Three decades of policy without production

The 1990s – Chaos and licensed looting
Right after the fall of the communist system, Albania went through a harsh liberalization process, which often translated into looting of natural resources and uncontrolled privatizations. The lack of an institutional architecture left the country’s strategic resources in the hands of random actors and corruption.

The 2000s – Growth on a weak foundation
This decade brought formal institutional improvement, but the approach remained focused on concessioning natural resources, not on transforming them into economic activity with added value. The governments of this time began to distribute exploitation contracts, but without building mechanisms to ensure that this wealth served local development or human capital.

The 2010–2024 – The state as operator, not as regulator
In the last decade and a half, we have seen a concentration of decision-making, where the state often acts as an enterprise, not as a guarantor of the rules of the game. Public investments in infrastructure have not been guided by a strategy for creating new wealth, but often by electoral logic. Even in sectors such as tourism or energy, government policy has focused more on attracting large investments, but without a sustainable policy for local development, resource ownership, or environmental protection.

What is missing is creative capital, not natural capital
Albania does not lack wealth.
Nor projects.
Nor funds.
What it lacks is the institutionalization of a vision to move from an extractive economy to one of production and innovation.
The development path no longer runs through road tenders, but through investment in quality education, digital skills, increased productivity of small enterprises, and the real inclusion of communities in development.
If a government is measured by its ability to foster creation, then its success will not be determined by how many hectares were exploited or how many tourists passed through Radhima, but by how many new manufacturing businesses were born, how many innovators returned from abroad, and how many young people were given the opportunity to build, not to emigrate.

The great lesson – Creative policy over distributive policy
Margaret Thatcher once said that the problem with redistribution-based states is that one day “they run out of other people’s money.” Albania, too, risks running out of “new beneficiaries” if it does not return to the model of creating wealth through work, intellect, and competition.
Natural resources are a starting point, but only for those who think of development as an institutional process, not as a momentary gain. Until we understand this, we will continue to be rich for others and poor for ourselves.