Russia : Bank Assistance for Social Protection
This paper is one of the background papers prepared as an input to the Russia Country Assistance Evaluation (CAE) by the Operations Evaluation Department (OED) of the World Bank. In 1992, the Russian Federation commenced reforms to transition to a...
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Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/03/26017776/russia-bank-assistance-social-protection http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24113 |
Summary: | This paper is one of the background
papers prepared as an input to the Russia Country Assistance
Evaluation (CAE) by the Operations Evaluation Department
(OED) of the World Bank. In 1992, the Russian Federation
commenced reforms to transition to a market economy. This
report focuses on the following projects: the Employment
Services and Social Protection Loan (ESSP), the Social
Protection Adjustment Loan (SPAL), and the Social Protection
Implementation Loan (SPIL). From the beginning of its
relationship with Russia, the Bank viewed social protection
reform as one of the most important elements of its country
assistance strategy, largely out of concern that a breakdown
in the social safety net would undermine political support
for economic reform. In general, the outcome of social
protection efforts during the first part of the 1990s was
moderately satisfactory and the outcome in the second half
of the decade was moderately unsatisfactory. The ESSP was
created to ensure a proper response to an anticipated rise
in unemployment claims as a result of industrial
restructuring and later changed to focus mostly on
computerisation and upgrading the data processing capacity
of local social protection offices dealing with pension
payments. The SPAL-SPIL package addressed most of the
important remaining social protection reforms, but with
mixed success. Major barriers to success were the poor
fiscal conditions prevailing through most of the 1990s, and
the unsatisfactory performance of both the Bank and the
borrower during the latter half of the 1990s. Lessons to be
learned from the Bank’s experience in Russia in the 1990s
include the need to: (a) pay more attention to the political
and institutional aspects of the reform process; (b) have
reasonable expectations about the pace at which reforms can
be developed, adopted, and implemented (c) deal with all of
the relevant units of government, and not just the federal
executive; and (d) employ lending vehicles with more
flexibility to adjust lending activities as the policy
development and implementation process passes through its
various phases. Overall, the author has presented a
thorough, professional analysis covering all major aspects
of co-operation between the Russian Federation and the Bank
in the social protection area in the 1990s. |
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