Europe and Central Asia Knowledge Brief
67 items available
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This is a regular series of notes highlighting recent analyses, good practices, and lessons learned from the development work program of the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia Region.
Items in this collection
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Publication
Empowering Communities : The Local Initiatives Support Program in Russia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-06)Prosperity from economic growth is not shared evenly among Russia's population and regions. Local communities and rural territories face serious development challenges: including poor living conditions, infrastructure, and services and lack of citizens' participation in decision-making processes. The Russian Federation Local Initiatives Support Program (RF LISP) aims to address community challenges by introducing a participatory approach to the development and rehabilitation of local-level social infrastructure. Specifically, LISP channels funds from regional budgets to finance participatory projects in poorer local communities. For the period 2009-14, LISP has been implemented in six regions and has resulted in more than 1,200 projects with over 1 million beneficiaries. Key factors for LISP success are the following: (i) mainstreaming of LISP into the national administrative system and budget process, and (ii) providing the Bank's technical assistance at all stages of project implementation to share international experience in community-driven development (CDD) projects, and ensuring transparency and quality of LISP procedures. -
Publication
Tajikistan : Reinvigorating Growth in Khatlon Oblast
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-06)This report supports a joint World Bank-IFC initiative to review and evaluate economic growth prospects for Khatlon oblast in order to develop a private sector-driven strategy for accelerating the region's growth over the medium term. -
Publication
Employment Recovery Stalls in Europe and Central Asia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-04)Employment recovery stalls in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) continues to recover in most ECA countries, but the recovery remains fragile. Growth prospects remain poor in a number of countries where GDP continues to decline. This slowdown in the economic recovery is also evident at the sub-regional level. Unemployment has stabilized, with an average unemployment rate of 12 percent across the ECA region. Since the start of the crisis, men have been disproportionally hit by unemployment. The recent pace of job creation has not been sufficient to absorb the large pool of unemployed, resulting in growing long-term unemployment. Despite the rise in long-term unemployment, activity rates have increased or remained constant in most countries since 2008. ECA labor markets adjusted to the crisis not only through higher unemployment, but also through fewer work hours. Given the already low levels of employment in the region and a bleak demographic outlook, avoiding labor market detachment among the long-term unemployed, the inactive, and youth is the main challenge for policy makers in the near term. -
Publication
Active Labor Market Programs : How, Why, When, and To What Extent are they Effective?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-12)Active labor market programs (ALMPs) aim to keep workers employed, bring them into employment, increase their productivity and earnings, and improve the functioning of labor markets. ALMPs to retain employment, for example, work-sharing schemes, should be used only for short periods during severe recessions. More cost-effective and useful during recoveries are ALMPs to create employment, which strengthen outsiders labor market attachment and support the outflow out of unemployment. Training programs are especially effective over the long term, particularly the more they target disadvantaged outsiders. ALMPs that improve labor market matching are highly beneficial, but effective only in the short run. ALMPs in general might be more cost effective over the long term (3-10 years) and some may even be self-financing, suggesting that long-term evaluations are needed to better ascertain the impact of individual policies. -
Publication
Social Safety Nets in Europe and Central Asia : Preparing for Crisis, Adapting to Demographic Change, and Promoting Employability
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-04)Social safety nets in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region responded to protect people's incomes during the global recession, especially in countries where systems were developed before the crisis. As population's age and labor forces shrink, the elderly will increasingly rely on general revenues to supplement contributory pensions, competing with assistance for other vulnerable groups. Social safety nets that link to employment and other services can help people transition from reliance on social transfers to employability. Countries should not wait to confront these challenges. To further strengthen social safety nets, governments in ECA should consolidate and harmonize benefits, invest in systems improvements for greater efficiency, link social assistance and employment services, and actively communicate these reforms to their populations. -
Publication
Unemployment Registration and Benefits in ECA Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-04)Public Employment Services (PES) in several Europe and Central Asia (ECA) countries are severely limited by underfunded labor market programs, understaffing, and fragmented networks of employment offices. Cash benefits and other entitlements like health insurance often act as incentives to job seekers to register with PES. However, such benefits can and often do encourage unemployment registration by economically inactive individuals. Registered unemployment exceeds survey based unemployment rates in about half of ECA countries (mostly Central Europe and Western Balkans). Registered unemployment is much lower than survey-based unemployment in the Baltic States and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries, primarily due to low access to unemployment benefits and active labor market programs (ALMPs). The numbers of unemployment assistance beneficiaries vary significantly across ECA. In 2009, for example, 85 percent of the registered unemployed in Russia received benefits but, in eight ECA countries, less than 10 percent of the registered unemployed received such assistance. -
Publication
Employment-Related Mitigation Measures in ECA Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-02)There are growing constraints on public finances in many countries due to the actual and projected build-up of public debt, which limits the scope of labor market interventions. Only a few Europe and Central Asia (ECA) countries (most notably Estonia, Kazakhstan and Russia) had set aside resources that can now be used to cushion an externally driven economic slowdown. Currently, the labor market situation in many ECA countries can be characterized as lack of demand for labor. Overall, in 27 ECA countries for which data are available for June 2008 to June 2009, registered unemployment increased from 8.460 million to 11.354 million, or around 34 percent. The number of registered unemployed increased the most in three Baltic States, Turkey and Moldova. Nevertheless, most governments in ECA have responded to the global economic crisis by making additional resources available for labor market and social policies, and with discretionary policy measures to cushion the negative effects of the crisis on workers and low-income households. Spending on unemployment benefits has increased automatically as job losses have mounted, and many governments have moved promptly to scale-up resources for active labor market programs. -
Publication
Action Needed : Spiraling Drug Prices Empty Russian Pockets
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-02)In large measure, this is due to the relatively low level of public health spending in the country (about 3.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2008) that underlines the significant gap between the constitutional commitment to a range of medical care services and the actual funding to pay for them. While drugs are supposed to be provided to hospital patients free of charge, an estimated 80 percent of inpatients still have to pay part of the costs of their medicines and most outpatients must purchase them from pharmacies. The outpatient drug program under mandatory health insurance covers only around 16 million people (11 percent of the total population in the country), with more than half of them opting to receive cash rather than in-kind benefits under the 2005 'monetization' of prescription drug benefits. Those who continue with the in-kind benefits appear to be the ones greatest in need of drugs. The situation is further aggravated by the country's ineffective enforcement of controls on wholesale and retail mark-ups for medicines. Household expenditure on drugs accounted for about 30 percent of total health expenditure in Russia, as compared to 12 percent in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in 2008. -
Publication
Migration and Remittances in CIS Countries during the Global Economic Crisis
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-01)Despite the fact that the free flow of people across borders is the lynchpin of today's globalized world, more importance is usually given to the unrestricted movement of capital and goods. As a consequence, the effects of the financial crisis on the issue of migration have largely been ignored by the international community. The World Bank and other international organizations are examining ways to mitigate the effects of the financial crisis on migration and foster productive dialogue and partnerships among both sending and receiving countries, and the migrants themselves. This article describes the effects of the crisis in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), proposes reforms to mitigate its effects, and suggests actions to encourage self-sustaining progress in the area of migration in the future. -
Publication
Mitigating the Impact of the Economic Crisis on Public Sector Health Spending
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-08)The current global financial crisis is having a substantial impact in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) where economic growth is beginning to dip, unemployment is rising and government revenues are being cut. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of the region is projected to decline by 4.7 percent in 2009 and the flow of remittances is also expected to slow down sharply, causing particular hardship to low-income groups. While countries with fiscal capacity have adopted stimulus packages to promote economic recovery, most ECA countries are financially constrained and have revised their government budgets, including in the health sector. Thus, as a result of the crisis, public spending on health may actually decrease in absolute amounts and in percentage of GDP. The health sectors in most ECA countries are mainly financed from public sources. In countries with low levels of public spending on health3, the majority of health services are paid for by patients. Any reductions in public health spending would thus only add to the out-of-pocket expenditures of patients, and may negatively affect access to care, particularly for the poor. There is increasing empirical evidence that public sector spending improves health indicators in low-income and transition countries, particularly in countries that have good governance systems in place.