Democracy and Governance: Eurasia Regional Program
The Development Challenge:
The challenge facing Eurasia today is to sustain and further the key democratic, economic, and social reforms now underway. While progress is being made, the remaining challenges are formidable. USAID's review of country performance, which takes into account over two dozen transition indicators, shows that the region lags far behind the Europe "northern tier" graduate countries and increasingly behind countries in south-east Europe.
While early democratic reforms across the region and recent developments in Georgia and Ukraine are encouraging, lack of democratic reform in several countries along with setbacks to democratic development in others is a major challenge. Authoritarian rule remains the norm in the majority of the Eurasian countries, with widespread corruption and incomplete reforms undermining public trust in government and the private sector.
With respect to the economic transition, Eurasian economies are still highly dependent on primary commodities and have weak trade and investment ties outside the region. While lack of reform in some countries (e.g. Turkmenistan and Belarus) has contributed to their economic isolation, economic policy reform has been appreciable in most Eurasian countries where the focus is now on implementing "second generation" reforms and addressing problems of competitiveness and job creation. Regarding the social transition, the rapid growth of HIV/AIDS, poor health conditions, and poverty and income inequality are growing concerns, as are the depletion of human capital coupled with lack of opportunities for youth. The costly and inefficient health, education, pension, and social safety net systems based on the soviet model need major overhaul.
(Excerpted from the 2006 Congressional Budget Justification for the Eurasia Regional Program)
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