Fact Sheet
Program in Poland 1989 - 2000
The USAID office in Warsaw closed on September 30, 2000, leaving Poland
as one of Central and Eastern Europe's most successful transition economies.
Poland is one of the oldest Support for East European Democracy (SEED)
programs, with approximately one billion dollars obligated since 1989
to fund dozens of projects. Debt-restructuring,
financing the Polish-American Enterprise Fund (PAEF), and bank privatization
were notable achievements during the initial years of the program -
all large-scale initiatives which helped to pull Poland out of recession
and transform key financial structures. In the latter half of the 1990s,
USAID’s activities concentrated on three strategic areas:
Stimulating the private sector at the firm level, with emphasis
on improving the viability of small and medium enterprises, chiefly
through academic and professional training, various institutions that
support business development, and introduction of energy-saving technologies.
Help in legal, regulatory, and judicial reform also fostered competition
and helped create a policy environment more conducive to small and
medium enterprises' success.
Building a competitive, market-oriented financial sector,
highlighted by increasing liberalization and investment in the banking
sector, high levels of accountability, growing professionalism, and
strengthened supervisory structures for banking, insurance, and capital
markets, based on global standards of transparency. Also assisted
is the new, competitive pension funds system that contributes to capital
market development and long-term fiscal stability. Examples of SEED-strengthened
financial services include: business and municipal credit ratings,
licensed warehousing, banking associations, credit unions, municipal
bond markets, and cooperative banking. SEED assistance also fostered
the development of housing support associations, and the financial
and legal environment for the construction of affordable private housing,
transforming the housing sector into a sustainable, market-driven
system.
Encouraging effective, responsive, and accountable local government
is USAID’s major initiative as the bilateral program draws to
a close. The Local Government Partnership Program provides both direct
assistance to local governments by helping to improve resource management
to meet local citizens' needs and strengthening a network of support
associations. These efforts, which help to strengthen democracy at
all levels of society, have been complemented by the Polish government's
(GOP) extensive fiscal and political decentralization reforms.
In 1999 four major structural reforms came into effect - public administration,
health, education and pensions - all of which have been supported by
USAID. During the final year of the program, USAID efforts have centered
on enhancing communication between the government and its public, so
as to promote more effective and responsive policy decision-making.
The above main strategic goals have been supplemented by a number of
special initiatives involving USAID collaboration with other U.S. government
agencies, including environmental protection (Environmental Protection
Agency), redeployment of redundant Silesian coal miners (Department
of Labor), modernizing the criminal justice system (Department of Justice),
and pilot assistance in tax administration (Department of Treasury).
Poland has become a role model for other transition countries. The
Polish-American Freedom
Foundation, which will use interest income from its endowment (based
on a significant portion of reflows stemming from the liquidation of
the successful PAEF), will continue to finance grants to institutions
and individuals in support of Poland's continuing transition process,
and in accordance with the precepts set out in the SEED act. With USAID
support, trilateral cooperation under the Poland-American-Ukraine
Cooperation Initiative (PAUCI) will enable Ukrainian entrepreneurs,
government officials and NGOs to obtain training and advice from Poland-based
training centers, think tanks, and other sources of expertise. The GOP
is also conducting its own foreign assistance program, focussed on neighboring
states and facilitated through creation, with USAID support, of the
Polish Know-How Foundation.
Back to Top
|
