BOLETÍN DE LITERATURA ORAL, 10 (2023), PP.

991-996

Spatial Development of the City as Part of Sustainable Development

Objectives (The case of Albania)
Dr. Lindita KIRI
Faculty of Education and Philology / Fan S. Noli University, Korça, Albania

ABSTRACT:
Albania is heading towards EU integration and a number of strategies have been adopted to
face the challenges directly related to this process. Recently, Albania has engaged in the
implementation of the universal agenda (Agenda 2030) that ensures progress in all global
development challenges or in other words the Sustainable Development Goals. The paper aims
to address the implementation of sustainable development objectives and emphasizes the
importance of decentralization at the local level. The Geographic Information System (GIS)
has brought a perspective in management and integration through geospatial representation to
help progress in the implementation of the SDGs. The process of decentralization of CSOs at
the local level is important to enable the achievement of two international standards on cities.
The first standard measures the quality of life, while the second measures indicators in the
management of so-called smart cities, "Smart Cities".
.Each of the objectives of the CSO package has indicators related to urban policies, and has a
clear impact on human settlements. Goal eleven (MDG 11) is dedicated to helping cities and
human settlements become more inclusive and sustainable. The urban planning projects that
are considered strategic in the 11th OZhQ are important.

Key words: Urban Planning, Sustainable Development Goals; GIS; Geospatial, Map.

Introduction
In terms of setting priorities such as: hunger, poverty, discrimination, environmental degradation,
gender inequality, etc., there was a mobilization at the global level. In order to provide common ground
for addressing these challenges, standardized implementation and monitoring followed, and the whole
process was integrated into a set of objectives called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

In the wake of substantial progress at the global level, it was deemed important to find a mechanism to
make the target indicators sustainable. Consequently, it was switched from the Millennium
Development Goals to the Sustainable Development Goals. Here too, Albania is one of the countries
committed to their implementation.

Albania has successfully achieved important results in the implementation of the MDGs, especially for
eliminating poverty, ensuring gender equality and empowering women, as well as reducing the risk of
social exclusion. Albania is committed to the implementation of Agenda 2030 through the European
Integration Process. The Sustainable Development Goals are a package of 17 goals, each of which has
a number of target indicators (169) and a number of indicators that serve to measure the target indicators
(241 in total) and which must be achieved not only at the global level and nationally, but also at the
local level.

The eleventh Sustainable Development Goal is entirely dedicated to making cities and human
settlements inclusive, safe and sustainable. The term "Localization" implies the mutual relationship of

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how local governance can support the achievement of the SDGs and, also, how the SDGs can provide
a framework for policy making in local development. Each objective has one or several target indicators
that can be directly related to local governance. Indicators Objective 11 is related to local governance
and this paper devotes special importance to it.

Albania's progress in the implementation of the ODGs

"The Voluntary National Review4" is a document presenting Albania's progress in the implementation
of CSOs until 20171. Another document is the "Baseline report" which presents a snapshot of the current
situation. The results of the reports show that 140 target indicators of CSOs are in line with the National
Strategy for Development and Integration from 2015-2020. The "Baseline Report" shows that Objective
11 is 59% in line with national policies for Development and Integration. Out of 10 indicators of OzhQ
112:
− An indicator is not applicable in Albania (11.c),
− Two indicators are fully compatible (11.4, 11.a),
− The other seven indicators are partially compatible (11.1, 11.2, 11.3, 11.5, 11.6, 11.7, 11.b).

At the end of 2013, Albania launched the National General Plan for the Development of the Territory
of Albania 2015-2030 at all levels of government. Albania makes a direct contribution to Objective 11
(Sustainable Cities and Communities).

The National Monitoring Platform reflects indicators in four main pillars, as follows:
• Social Cohesion and Quality of Life;
• Integrated Spatial Development;
• Management of natural resources;
• Economic Competition and Elasticity.

The level of expenditures made for Objective 11 has increased.

The importance of localization of NGOs

The term "Localization" is used to achieve the SDGs for the 2030 Agenda. The SDGs have target
indicators directly related to the responsibilities of local governments, especially their role in providing
basic services. Equally important for the local government is the identification and building of synergies
and connections with the national strategies of the CSOs, as well as the setting of priorities related to
the 92 local target indicators of the 17 CSOs.

One of the elements of the localization process is the identification and prioritization of target indicators
at the local level. CSO 11 is fully connected to local government and will be a fundamental part of the
localization process of CSOs.3 The implementation of OzhQ 11 4not only affects exclusively the
performance of cities on the services provided and the quality of life, but is also the objective that most
affects local communities.

The impact of urban planning on the achievement of Objective 11

The challenges facing the implementation of OzhQ 11 are very similar to the common urban planning
issues of today. Below we mention some of them:
• Avoiding/mitigating the effects of climate change to make the city a healthier place to
live;

1
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/20257ALBANIA_VNR_2018_FINAL2.pdf
2
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/commitments/818_11195_commitment_ROAD
MAP%20Lokalizim%20OZhQ-ve.pdf

3
“Voluntary National Review” mbi OZhQ-të
4
Basic Report for Albania on CSOs, January 2018, p. 26

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• Enabling well-integrated and connected cities and territories;

• Promotion of social inclusion;
• Protection of spaces or monuments of special importance for the city and its residents, such as
free zones, natural beauties, monuments of historical character, green spaces, etc.;
• Reduction of limitations in the selection of housing or the existence of their unaffordable
prices;
• Increasing opportunities to use public transport;
• Creating strategies on capacity planning, etc.

In addition to the similarities, there is also a very strong connection between the current issues of the
communities and scope of CSOs. The scope covered by the CSOs provides us with the necessary
guidelines for urban planning in order to improve the lives of communities. One of the indicators of
OzhQ 11, which is addressed to urban planning, is that; "Until 2030, the achievement of comprehensive
and sustainable urbanization, as well as the building of capacities for planning and management of
participation, integration and sustainability of human settlements in all countries".
An important role is played by rapid and sustainable urbanization and coping with the challenges of
climate change.

To address a sustainable urban development it is necessary to take actions such as:

− Development of cities avoiding the creation of slums-ghettos;
− Development mainly oriented towards coping with the transition challenges of recent years;
− Integration of used land;
− Integration of transport infrastructure;
− Strategic spatial planning;
− Strategic infrastructural planning;
− Strategic distribution of the energy system and the water supply network, etc.

The above actions show the local government's efforts to have the same urbanistic typology, as well as
to offer the same services simultaneously to all neighborhoods in the city. Urban planning has two
processes in mind: mitigation/facilitation of the effects caused by the urban development so far and
adaptation to improve it further.

The impact of GIS on the localization process

5
GIS integrates physical hardware, software and data for the provision, display, management and
analysis of all forms of geographically referenced information.

As a system, GIS has various applications integrated within a platform that facilitates the entire process
regardless of the user's role. GIS allows users to firstly handle or collect the necessary information,
secondly to analyze the spatial information and finally to present the results of these operations to all
interested parties to enable efficient urban planning and management, as well as transparency through
geospatial analysis. .

The GIS platform helps to visualize the data collected for the CSOs, thus enabling the analysis of which
objective and/or target indicator has been realized or has gone in the right direction and which has not,
also if this phenomenon is observed simultaneously throughout the territory or are there special areas
that behave differently from the mass6.
GIS functionalities that help in this direction are:
• Comprehensive information of fields, roles and users;
• Data management;

5
IOT-internet of things
6
ESRI: History [Internet]: ESRI.com; 2008. [cited 2008 Aug]

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• Analyzing and understanding information;

• Creation of online maps and analyses;
• Decision-making based on good information;
• Sustainable Design and Planning;

With the latest technological developments such as Web and Cloud computing, as well as throwing and
integrating data into the real-time platform through IOT7, GIS has become an important platform for
any purpose. The world faces increasing population and environmental and pollution problems 7. GIS
will play an increasingly important role in how we understand and address these issues for solutions
and provide the means to communicate them using a common language, that of cartographic
representation."

So the GIS platform will continue to play an important role to understand the data and describe the
connections that exist between them, providing ease in understanding the situations.

Conclusions
Decentralization plays an important role in the decentralization process in achieving the objectives of
the 2030 Agenda.

The Albanian government's commitment to its fulfillment must be done in close cooperation with the
local government, for two reasons:
• More than half of the target indicators of CSOs are related to local governance;
• Goal eleven (MDG 11) is dedicated to helping cities and human settlements become more
inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

The exercise of local government functions, defined in Law No. 139/2015 "On the organization and
operation of local government", plays a decisive role in achieving the target indicators of the CSOs.
Each target indicator can be achieved by exercising one or several of the exclusive functions, while the
exercise of one of the exclusive functions affects the achievement of at least one of the target indicators
of the CSOs.

Urban planning affects almost all objectives to start the implementation of OzhQ 11 and the use of GIS
as a tool to distribute the necessary information for planning, implementation and achievement of target
indicators.

The Municipality of Tirana has undertaken a number of actions on urban planning, contributing
directly or indirectly to the target indicators of OzhQ 11 such as:
• Increasing green spaces in the city;
• Increasing the forested area, as well as the creation of the Orbital forest;
• Some unused spaces of the city have become more attractive, converting them into green spaces
and equipping them with the necessary infrastructure for entertainment and service provision;
• Reduction of air pollution, designating several car-free days during the year and returning the
center of Tirana to a car-free zone;
• Testing the electric lines of public transport buses to be environmentally friendly vehicles or
green equipment, as well as the transition of almost all taxis to electricity through the policies
and incentives undertaken;
• Restructuring the road infrastructure to give priority to public transport, the construction of
lanes dedicated to bicycles as well as the construction of ramps to make Tirana's roads more
easily accessible;

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• Construction of social housing in areas combined with existing housing or future residential
areas in order to avoid ghettoization of neighborhoods;
• The "Polycentric Tirana Project" envisages the development of the city in 7 different urban
poles, which will be well connected between them and will enable the regulation of density
ratios, so that citizens can receive services as close as possible to their homes;
• Construction of several multi-purpose buildings to offer more spaces and services to citizens;
• Project of green terraces, etc.

Despite this, there are other actions that we suggest to be undertaken in the future on urban development
and the fulfillment of the SDGs:
• The Web-GIS platform currently used only for internal use by the Municipality should
be made usable for other users outside of it;
• To look at the possibility of relocation to peripheral areas of industries or businesses that pollute
the environment;
• Establishing special tax packages for different areas of the city in order to impact the future
development of these areas, for example reducing the tax burden for the suburbs in order to
develop the entire city;
• Strategic planning for the development of rural areas;
• Incentive scheme for any individual or company that uses environmentally friendly
equipment, such as construction companies that build ecological buildings, etc.;
• Building administrators encourage the planting of trees and more green spaces around
buildings and residential areas;
• Giving priority to public transport for main roads at peak hours, during breakfast and dinner;
• Better road infrastructure for lines that connect residential areas with business areas such as the
Tirana-Durres highway, so that citizens can use public transport as an alternative to go to work;
• An integration in infrastructure and activities of developed and less developed areas to favor
social inclusion;
• To propose additional policies regarding the protection of the environment, areas with historical
or touristic values, etc.

Sustainable development is about effective decision-making. GIS has a vital role in visualizing a more
sustainable future through maps.

References
1. Agenda for Sustainable Development. UN Statistics Division Inter-Agency Expert Group on
SDG Available online: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/iaeg-sdgs/ Tetor. 2018
2. IAEG-SDG. Compilation of Metadata for the Proposed Global Indicators for the Review of
the 2030 , 2016
3. Indicators 4 March. Available online: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/iaeg-sdgs/metadata-
compilation , Tetor, 2018
4. Kalow, Jared, and Megan O’Donnell. 2017. To Leave No One Behind, Data Disaggregation
Needs to Catch Up. Center for Global Development. Available online https://www.cgdev.org/
,2017.
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http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/environ.shtml.
6. UN Statistics Division Inter-agency Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal
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8. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.or
9. https://www.global-taskforce.org
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11. https://www.geospatialworld.net
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