Turning to People

The report makes a large number of recommendations for advancing human development in Belarus. They cover a number of policy areas and include, maintaining population levels, reform of property rights, social insurance and the provision of pensions, social protection of the unemployed and creation of new jobs, employment of women, social rehabilitation of people affected by the Chernobyl nuclear accident, consumer rights protection, disarmament and economic demilitarization, arousing national self-awareness, revival of the Belarusian indigenous culture and language, regulating the use of natural resources, overcoming the effects of the Chernobyl catastrophe, training and dissemination of environmental knowledge and creation of civil society and a state based on the rule of law. This constitutes a list of measures for government consideration which could provide the basis for a sustainable human development strategy for the country. However, the report notes that implementation of these recommendations will only be possible if the necessary resources are found and used efficiently, no easy task in a period of a profound economic crisis.