> Project Background
> Mid-term Socioeconomic Development Program of the Russia Federation (till 2004)
> Program of cooperation between the Russian Federation and the World Bank for 2002-2004
> Memorandum on a Country Assistance Strategy of the World Bank Group for the Russian Federation
> Memorandum of Understanding
> Description of Problems
> Main goal of the project
> Tasks of the project
Project Background - Mid-term Socioeconomic Development Program of the Russia Federation till 2004 (approved by the Government of Russia in July 2001)
- Program of cooperation between the Russian Federation and the World Bank for 2002-2004 (approved by the Government of Russia in February 2002)
- Memorandum on a Сountry Assistance Strategy of the World Bank Group for the Russian Federation (May 2002).
Mid-term Socioeconomic Development Program of the Russia Federation (till 2004) - Main task is to overcome of the post-crisis recession of living standard, that first of all requires poverty level decrees and reduction of income differentiation due to the strengthening of targeting of social assistance of the population and stimulation of the growth of remuneration of labor.
- One of the social policy directions: significant reduction of social and economical poverty, and above all minimization of extreme poverty at the places of its overall concentration, strengthening of social security of the population, liable to the risk of essential deterioration of welfare and poverty beginning.
- Governmental measures on poverty overcoming will be elaborated and executed. Those measures should anticipate reduction of the poverty level in mid-term period, prevent its growth and expansion, including usage of different mechanisms and approaches to the concrete socio-economical groups of population.
- Actualization of consumer basket for the main socio-demographic population groups taking into account practices of expertise of the regional consumer baskets will be implemented with a view to specify methodology of determination of the living standard as a poverty criteria in accordance with the legislation in conditions of reforming of the social sphere.
Program of cooperation between the Russian Federation and the World Bank for 2002-2004 Program of cooperation specifically make provision for acquisition of the substantial range of consulting services from the World Bank by the Russian Government. This is indicative of the value Russian Government attaches to the Bank·s advisory services, as long as the latter are appropriately adjusted to the Russia·s needs. Such an accent on increasing of the role of technical support is of a special concernment because it confirms intention of the Russian Government to use this type of support from the World Bank side after recent worsening criticism addressed to the services provided by international consultants. Memorandum on a Country Assistance Strategy of the World Bank Group for the Russian Federation Clearly there is a need to move to more broadly set of poverty estimates for Russia, a move that is expected to enrich the policy debate on attacking poverty. These estimates should be based upon common and agreed-upon approaches to data source. These estimates should also be based upon improved techniques of poverty measurement and methodology for Goskomstat. At present Goskomstat·s Households Budget Surveys · by virtue of their size and coverage · represent the best potential source of poverty data in Russia. Access to HBS data needs to be broadened and and new analytical tools need to be applied to these data in order to help users converge to a more broadly accepted set of poverty estimates in Russia. Memorandum of Understanding On April 16 2002 MLSD of Russia (in the person of First Deputy Minister Mr. V. Yanvarev ), Goskomstat of Russia (in the person of First Deputy Chairman Mr. A. Surinov), the World Bank (in the person of Director for Russia Mr. J. Schweitzer) and Department for international Development, UK (in the person of the First Secretary of the Development section of UK Embassy Mr. M. Harris) have signed Memorandum of Understanding, in which main goals and tasks are described together with major expected outcomes, period of realization and distribution of authority. Description of Problems In the document, titled ·Basic principles of the project of cooperation in improving monitoring, measurement and analysis of poverty in Russia· the following major problems, that are to be solved during the implementation of this project, are mentioned: - The lack of such indicators as number of poor people and revealing ·groups of risk· leads to ungrounded forecast of the cost of state-sponsored programs and proposed laws and makes it difficult to assess the budgetary requirements.
- Generalized data, on which Russian statistical practice is based, do not reflect all the possible characteristics for the study of the structure of poverty and contain serious discrepancies between several indicators
- Absence of more effective instruments for statistical study of poverty and new methods of the use of statistical observation results for analysis and forecasting.
Main goal of the project Increasing the potential of the users and producers of statistical information to implement measures to combat poverty envisaged by the medium-term program by improving the quality of the information base and introducing new methods of analysis and forecasting.
Tasks of the project - To enhance the intellectual capacity of data users and producers with the view to implementing poverty reduction actions through quality improvement of the database and introduction of new poverty monitoring, analysis and forecast techniques.
- An integrated assessment of poverty (including its regional aspect) and actual social assistance (including benefits) to be implemented within the framework of the Project assumes the use and analysis of data from all available sources, including administrative data.
- The Project involves training of government stuff, researchers and experts in the operation and further development of microdatabases and their use for poverty analysis and forecast, as well as for assessment of the requisite scope and contents of social protection activities.
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