Elton Stafa

Elton Stafa is the Program Director at NALAS, focusing on public finance, fiscal decentralization, and local governance. His work at NALAS supports evidence-based policymaking, intergovernmental dialogue, institutional capacity building, and regional learning and exchange.

He manages NALAS activities within the PLATFORMA project, contributing to the policy advocacy efforts of the Local Government Associations of Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine. He also leads the NALAS Task Force on Fiscal Decentralisation and coordinates the NALAS Regional Decentralization Observatory, a platform serving as a knowledge and information hub for local government finance in South-East Europe. In addition, he co-chairs the Local Public Sector Alliance Working Group on Subnational Finance and is a member of the Local Finance Working Group of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR).

Previously, he worked at the Ministry of Finance of Albania, as well as serving as a regional fiscal decentralization expert for USAID, the EU, the World Bank, ADA, GIZ, SALAR International, and other international development partners. Stafa holds an MSc in European Economy and Business Law from the University of Rome Tor Vergata. He has authored several regional studies and research papers on fiscal decentralisation and local governance.