Europe & CIS

Benefits of a Strategic Environmental Assessment

This briefing paper introduces the role of a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) in development of policies, plans and programmes. It describes practical lessons learned with pilot SEA projects supported by the Sofia EIA Initiative in countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

Human Development Report Slovenia 2002-2003

This report focuses on one key component of human development, health. It explores health in a social context, examines the socioeconomic determinants of health and analyses Slovenia's healthcare system.

Human Development Report Czech Republic 2003

Human Development Report Slovak Republic 2001-2002

This report examines the strengths and shortcomings of the Slovak Republic's health sector, and formulates a framework for its improvement. It aims to increase public awareness of health issues and preventative measures, and highlight the individual's and society's role in improving public health.

Human Development Report Hungary 2000-2002

Towards alleviating human poverty. The economic growth of the 1990s failed to eliminate huge disparities in living conditions in Hungary - in fact, inequalities widened between the highest and lowest income groups. This report underscores the need for a comprehensive strategy based on a welfare-policy concept made up of clear, consistent and coherent principles to address this.

Avoiding the Dependency Trap

This comprehensive study on the situation of the Roma minority in five Central and Eastern European countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovak Republic) is based on comparable socioeconomic data from a cross-country survey of 5,034 Roma respondents. It addresses such questions as:
• Why has the situation of Roma in Central and Eastern Europe not improved in the last decade?
• What is the status of Roma in the region from a human development perspective? What are the actual levels of unemployment, depth of poverty, magnitude of segregation in education?
• Are Roma actually willing to integrate in their home societies or do they prefer to stay isolated in their cultural uniqueness?
• What needs to be done to improve development opportunities of the Roma in a sustainable way?

Fighting Corruption in Post-Communist States

This policy brief examines the tools and methods used in fighting corruption in the Europe and CIS region, based on case material from nine states. It offers a fresh look at different methods applied in the fight against corruption, and assesses prospects for adapting relatively successful methods to other parts of the region.

How to Make Local Development Work

This publication contributes to the ongoing debate on how to create the right conditions for stable and long-term economic growth in the post-Communist states of Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS. It reviews a number of key issues related to the economic revitalization of communities in the region and aims to provide central and local decision-makers, as well as civil society, with tools and practical examples that can help make local development work.

The Inflexibility Trap

The Inflexibility Trap, which synthesizes the main conclusions of the first year of work of civil society initiative Blue Bird, provides recommendations for building effective interaction between government and civil society in the policy process in the context of Southeastern Europe.

Policy Process Reform

Institutionalization of consultations between government institutions and non-government organizations in the CIS countries: conditions, form, practice. This publication has been prepared in the framework of the Regional Good Governance Programme of the UNDP Bratislava Regional Centre to promote the institutionalization of dialogue between NGOs and the authorities.

Rebuilding Effective Government: Local-Level Initiatives in Transition

This publication aims to make a contribution to the ongoing debate on decentralization in Europe and CIS, which remains an issue of relevance for all countries in the region. It focuses mainly on how to design a decentralization process that makes an effective contribution to increasing levels of human development in the region.

Rebuilding State Structures: Methods and Approaches

The trials and tribulations of post-communist countries. This publication provides an assessment of the tools applied to reform state administrations, based on case material provided by six countries in the region, and advocates for building modern and professional administrations as key to fostering human development.

Human Development Report Slovenia 2000-2001

This publication, the third Human Development Report for Slovenia, examines among other issues the cultural aspects of human development.

Human Development Report Slovak Republic 2000

Civil Service Reform - Experience of Transition

This publication is based on round-table proceedings on civil service and state administration reform in the Central Asia region that was held in November 2000 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The main contributors to the discussions include experts from OECD, Latvia, Poland and Slovakia as well as representatives of governments from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In Russian only.

Human Development Report Czech Republic 1999

Social protection, standard of living and poverty. This report sets out to establish the key parameters of human development in the country, and attempts to identify the areas where further progress must be made if quality of life is to continue to improve.

Human Development Report Hungary 1999

This report tackles the subject of income inequality and attempts to establish a longer-term comparison over several decades. Trends in earnings are also examined as a means of exploring developments in labour supply and demand.

Human Development Report Slovenia 1998

Slovenia's first Human Development Report.

HDR 2006: Beyond scarcity - Power, poverty and the global water crisis

Throughout history water has confronted humanity with some of its greatest challenges. Water is a source of life and a natural resource that sustains our environments and supports livelihoods – but it is also a source of risk and vulnerability. In the early 21st Century, prospects for human development are threatened by a deepening global water crisis. Debunking the myth that the crisis is the result of scarcity, this report argues poverty, power and inequality are at the heart of the problem.

In a world of unprecedented wealth, almost 2 million children die each year for want of a glass of clean water and adequate sanitation. Millions of women and young girls are forced to spend hours collecting and carrying water, restricting their opportunities and their choices. And water-borne infectious diseases are holding back poverty reduction and economic growth in some of the world’s poorest countries.

Beyond the household, competition for water as a productive resource is intensifying. Symptoms of that competition include the collapse of water-based ecological systems, declining river flows and large-scale groundwater depletion. Conflicts over water are intensifying within countries, with the rural poor losing out. The potential for tensions between countries is also growing, though there are large potential human development gains from increased cooperation.

The Human Development Report continues to frame debates on some of the most pressing challenges facing humanity. Human Development Report 2006:

• Investigates the underlying causes and consequences of a crisis that leaves 1.2 billion people without access to safe water and 2.6 billion without access to sanitation
• Argues for a concerted drive to achieve water and sanitation for all through national strategies and a global plan of action
• Examines the social and economic forces that are driving water shortages and marginalizing the poor in agriculture
• Looks at the scope for international cooperation to resolve cross-border tensions in water management
• Includes special contributions from Gordon Brown and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, President Lula, President Carter, and the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan.

Baseline Study on Corporate Social Responsibility Practices in the Western Balkans

The Baseline study on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices in the Western Balkans is the first comprehensive CSR analysis conducted in the region. The report covers Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo/UNMIK, Montenegro and Serbia. It provides a detailed analysis of CSR practices in the region and illustrates existing drivers, barriers, and resources for CSR engagement and promotion. The reports makes a number of recommendations that can be widely utilized by all stakeholders involved in CSR implementation – including businesses, governments, civil society, academia, development partners, and the media – in assessing their current CSR policies and in designing new initiatives.