Remittances Review May 2021 Volume: 6, No: 1, pp. 41-54 ISSN: 2059-6588 (Print) | ISSN: 2059-6596 (Online) journals.tplondon.com/rem Remittances Review All rights reserved © 2013-2021 Transnational Press London Received: 24 April 2020 Accepted: 3 April 2021 DOI: https://doi.org/ 10.33182/rr.v6i1.965 Remittances to Albania: Before and after the COVID-19 Pandemic Joniada Barjaba 1 Abstract This paper aims to advance an understanding of the flows of remittances resulting from Albanian migration before and after coronavirus, their impact on the country’s development and ways to mitigate the effects of the pandemic and ensure resilience of remittance families in Albania. Over the years, migrants’ remittances have played an important role in the social and economic development of Albania and Albanian families. The health emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic is expected to reshape our economy and could be devastating for migrants too. This pandemic is expected to change the context for international migration and potentially cause a decrease in remittances from Albanian migrants. And yet, surprisingly, there is a lack of effective mechanisms, policies, and recovery paths for increasing the positive impact of remittances on the country's development. The paper suggests that the way remittances are managed is important. Based on the context of Albania, remittances can be encouraged and facilitated through developing private-public-people partnerships, lowering costs, and using them for entrepreneurial initiatives rather than consumption. The key contributions of the paper lie in extending discussions of value of collecting data on remittances, providing a dynamic view of the multiplicity of factors behind remittances and giving some predictions for what’s to come next in regards to remittances after coronavirus. Keywords: Albania, covid-19; development; investment; remittances. Introduction Since the early 1990s, Albanian citizens are constantly seeking jobs and better life chances inside and outside their country and, as a result, taking difficult journeys to countries that appear to offer more promising opportunities. According to INSTAT, there were about 1.68 million Albanians residing abroad at the end of 2019, which is equivalent to almost half of the population currently living in Albania. International migration is a phenomenon that has a broad range of effects and remittances are “the most concrete consequence of international migration for developing countries...” (The Migration Observatory, 2012). Albanian migrants have continuously supported their families and relatives through sending back home. 1 Joniada Barjaba, University of Sussex: Brighton, Brighton and Hove, United Kingdom. E-mail: jbarjaba@gmail.com