e-Albania: A Digital-by-Default Portal That Left Elderly, Disabled and Roma Citizens Behind

Since launching roughly a decade ago, Albania's e-Albania portal, run by the National Agency for Information Society (AKSHI), has digitised the large majority of public administration: around 95% of applications for 1,237 public services are now processed online, and physical contact centres that used to handle walk-in requests have been closed.

AKSHI reports that 13% of e-Albania's users are aged over 62. But a 2025 BIRN investigation found pensioners in rural areas who say they cannot use the portal at all and must rely on neighbours or strangers to retrieve sensitive documents. Albania's national statistics office (INSTAT) shows 6.7% of citizens over 65 have been unable to access the portal, in a country where 31.6% of the population (roughly 473,000 of 2.4 million people) is over 65. A third of surveyed users rated their experience as 'not very easy' or 'not at all easy.'

The European Commission's 2023 Albania progress report flagged that closing front-office contact centres 'raised concerns over access to services to vulnerable and digitally less-apt citizens.' A 2024 UNDP assessment found none of the municipalities it assessed had implemented website features tailored to people with limited digital skills or disabilities, and Roma-focused NGOs report that support is project-based and lapses once donor funding ends. e-Albania is a cautionary case: high reach and heavy digitisation investment are not the same as inclusive design, and removing physical fallback channels before accessible digital alternatives exist can leave the citizens most dependent on public services worse off.