Academia as the Catalyst for Human Capital Development

Excellencies, distinguished colleagues from the College of Europe, representatives of the European Union, the World Bank, government institutions, UN agencies, and fellow development partners — thank you for a remarkably substantive dialogue.

What we’ve shared today was more than an exchange of views; it was a convergence of purpose. The College of Europe’s decision to co-host with UNICEF is not just symbolic — it recognizes that Albania’s EU accession journey is, at its core, a human capital development story. Institutions may build the bridge, but it is people who cross it. What makes our collaboration unique is that academia brings research, data, and analysis that directly inform policymaking and connect knowledge to impact.

Over the past year, UNICEF has had the privilege of serving as both catalyst and coordinator for what has become a uniquely collaborative approach to human capital in Albania.

We initiated and facilitated the Strategic Paper on Human Capital Development, working hand in hand with the EU, UN, and World Bank to build consensus on priorities.

We convened the July 2024 Deep Dive, aligning partners around a shared strategic direction.
And we’ve contributed analyses and op-eds that helped place human capital at the heart of Albania’s Reform Agenda under the EU Growth Plan.

This has never been about UNICEF acting alone — but about doing what we do best: bringing evidence, building coalitions, and translating global expertise into local solutions.

The richness of today’s discussions shows why this collaborative model works. Each partner brings something essential:

• The European Union provides resources, strategic vision, and the normative power of accession.
• The World Bank contributes macroeconomic and fiscal expertise.
• Government institutions bring implementation authority and deep knowledge of national realities.
• The College of Europe and academia offer insight, research, and the next generation of policy thinkers.
• Other UN agencies contribute specialized expertise — from health and nutrition to employment and gender equality.

What UNICEF adds is the connective tissue grounded in our mandate: the ability to link all stages of the human capital lifecycle — from prenatal care and early learning to youth skills, employability, and social protection.

Our work forms an unbroken chain of investment in people:

• Early childhood programs that support families and the youngest learners
• Strengthened education systems through partnership with the Ministry of Education
• Social and child protection systems that sustain progress
• Youth skills and employability initiatives that bridge education and work
• And robust data systems that inform evidence-based policy

This continuum — combined with our neutral convening power — positions UNICEF as the natural coordination hub for Albania’s human capital agenda.

Today’s dialogue reaffirmed two flagship interventions that can translate this vision into systemic impact — aligned with the EU integration process and its support instruments for Albania.

First – Future-ready Skills and Learning for 21st Century Jobs.

From early childhood through adolescence, human capital must be nurtured as a continuum. The skills that shape tomorrow’s workforce begin in the first 1,000 days — with nurturing care, nutrition, and early learning — and mature through quality education, digital literacy, and workplace-based training.

Our joint goal is to ensure that every young person has access to learning, training, or employment. This initiative connects early learning with employability, turning Albania’s demographic challenge into an opportunity for renewal. Through modernized curricula, expanded vocational pathways, and stronger school-to-business partnerships, we aim to make lifelong learning not a slogan, but a lived reality.

Second – Next-Generation Social Systems.

No economy can thrive if its families are left behind. This initiative focuses on modernizing Albania’s social protection, child protection, and family services so that every child can grow, learn, and thrive free from poverty and exclusion.

It promotes systems that are digital, data-driven, and inclusive — designed not only to respond to vulnerability, but to anticipate and prevent it.

And underpinning both flagships is a stronger data and evidence infrastructure — because we cannot manage what we do not measure. UNICEF brings global expertise in integrated data systems to help Albania track human capital development from birth through school and into the labour market.

Excellencies, colleagues, friends — Albania stands at an inflection point. The demographic trends we’ve discussed are sobering — population decline, emigration, low fertility — but they also show where action must focus.

Human capital investments are not costs; they are Albania’s passport to a competitive, inclusive European future. Every child in quality early education, every young person with market-relevant skills, every family protected from poverty — these are not only development outcomes; they are the very conditions of EU convergence.

UNICEF has been part of Albania’s journey for over three decades — through transition, through the earthquake, through COVID-19 — and we will remain here as Albania enters the European Union. Not as a project partner, but as a long-term ally ensuring that Albania’s children and youth are not passive beneficiaries of change, but active architects of their European future.

Moments of alignment like this are rare. Let’s turn today’s convergence into lasting systems change. Together — government, EU, UN, World Bank, civil society, and academia — we can ensure that every Albanian child reaches their full potential.

That is the human capital development Albania deserves — and that is the foundation upon which European Albania will be built.

Thank you.