The World Bank's report on Development Standards and the Sustainability of Public Institutions highlights a widespread problem in many developing countries: the lack of clear and unified standards for recruiting staff in public administration.
According to data from the Global Survey of Public Servants, governments often do not systematically use objective criteria, such as written exams, for the selection of civil servants, creating large differences between countries and even within institutions of the same state.
Albania ranks in an intermediate position compared to the other countries analyzed. According to the report, the average of Albanian public organizations shows that about 50% of civil servants are selected through a written exam. However, the wide range between institutions indicates a lack of complete standardization: in some organizations the percentage drops to about 20%, while in others it reaches up to 70%. This large variation suggests that recruitment practices are not the same across the public sector and that the implementation of standards differs from one institution to another.
Compared to countries in the region, Albania’s position is better than that of Kosovo, where the average selection through examinations is around 45%, but remains lower than countries that have more strongly institutionalized meritocracy in the administration, such as Croatia or Brazil. This gap shows that while formal mechanisms for testing candidates exist, their use is not yet uniform throughout the public system.
The World Bank report highlights that recruitment standards are one of the three main pillars of standards-based governance, along with budgetary and public procurement standards. Their aim is to ensure that public administration is built on competence and merit, through objective assessments of candidates. When these standards are absent or partially implemented, the risk is that institutions are weakened, negatively affecting the quality of public policies and citizen trust.
In this context, the report suggests that developing countries, including Albania, should strengthen recruitment standards and ensure uniform implementation across the entire administration. Otherwise, inequalities in selection procedures could undermine the professionalism of the civil service and limit the state's ability to implement effective policies in an increasingly complex economic and technological environment./Ekofin.al/
