About the regional Human Development Report:

UNDP’s Regional Human Development Report on social inclusion: Beyond Transition: Towards Inclusive Societies looks at the vicious cycle of poverty from the perspective of those who experience it firsthand. The report presents findings from surveys in six countries and provides an overview of social exclusion in the region and recommended actions. The report also introduces a way to measure the extent to which people are excluded from economic life, social services, and social networks and civic participation.

An estimated 35 percent of people in the region are excluded from society, ranging from 12 percent in The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to 72 percent in Tajikistan.

 

Your risk of being excluded from society can be measured

From London riots to Arab spring. Measuring social exclusion is a first step to address it

Andrey Ivanov

It’s often difficult to make sense of rapidly evolving events and equally tempting to generalize about the global zeitgeist out of disparate local phenomena. In spite of this, many commentators (see the World‘s Arab vs UK unrest: spot the difference, and the Washington Post‘s What’s behind Britain’s riots) seem to concur that events as diverse as the Arab spring, the London summer riots, the tent protests in Israel and all the way to unrest in Chile have at least one thing in common – social exclusion as one of the underlying causes (if not the main cause) of violent clashes. Exclusion may have different faces and manifestations but it has a similar outcome – fractured societies and human poverty. All governments are responsible for preventing such outcomes.

>> Read the full blog post From London riots to Arab Spring is a first step to address it

 

What is the impact of environmental disasters on the social fabric of a country?
Data from Europe and CIS

Andrey Ivanov

From Chernobyl to the Aral Sea: unfortunately the history of our region has been marked by significant environmental disasters. But did these events also have an impact on the social fabric of the affected communities? And, if so, how would it manifest itself? This was one of the questions we were interested to explore as we set to investigate the issue of social inclusion in our regional Human Development report.

Source: UNDP social exclusion survey, 2009

>> Read the full blog post "What is the impact of environmental disasters on the social fabric of a country?
Data from Europe and CIS"
 

UNDP and Oxford discuss social inclusion, launch regional human development report

20 June, 2011

Video streaming by Ustream

This discussion was streamed live on 20 June, 2011. This video is part of 1 of the day's discussion. >> See the full social inclusion discussion at Oxford University

 

Homeless: personal stories of life on the street

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia – 20 June, 2011 –Homelessness is increasingly an issue in the region. UNDP’s Regional Human Development Report on social inclusion: Beyond Transition: Towards Inclusive Societies estimates that 35 percent of people in the region are excluded from society. Watch video: three homeless men tell their stories However, data are based on information provided by 2,700 people who participated in a household survey in six countries. What about the homeless? The homeless do not fit into traditional sampling models and researchers can miss them. That does not mean they do not exist. A report published by the Institute for Urban Economics in Moscow sheds light on the ways people can become homeless as well as on the destructive implications for the individual. >> Read more about homeless people in the region

 

 

An insight into factors affecting social exclusion for people with disabilities

People with disabilities face a higher risk of being excluded from society. To what extent the risk materializes depends on a number of factors. One of them is where a person with a disability lives. According to data from Europe and CIS, if he or she happens to live in rural area, the risk of social exclusion is most severe. The risk falls by almost half in urban centres, and further in capital cities.

>> Read more on the significance of where a person with disabilities lives

Bribes and social exclusion – the unexpected link

Tolerance to corruption is proxied by the share of people who believe that unofficial payments or gifts are acceptable in at least one case listed. The threshold for low tolerance is less than 10 percent; for high acceptance of corruption, it is more than one third.

It’s intuitive that values such as tolerance for diversity are related to social exclusion. One can imagine that people with disabilities are left out of in intolerant society.

But corruption?

>> Read more on the link between corruption and social exclusion

 

How the report was produced