Harnessing return: migration, policy, and development opportunities in Albania

Return migration has emerged as a defining feature of Albania’s migration landscape over the last decades, intersecting with continuing patterns of emigration, brain drain, return, and the challenges of reintegration. This paper analyses three decades of cyclical migration between Albania and key destination countries, identifying distinct ‘waves’ of return shaped by the prevailing political, economic, and social contexts. Drawing on the authors’ previous qualitative fieldwork, the analysis of secondary statistical data and a review of literature, we examine how returnees contribute – under certain conditions – to entrepreneurship, skills transfer, and local economic development, while also facing structural barriers to sustainable reintegration. The meta-analysis argues for targeted, evidence-based policy interventions to harness return migration as a driver of the country’s socioeconomic development.