A Survey of Health Reform in Central Asia

A Survey of Health Reform in Central Asia PDF Author: Jeni Klugman
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 9780821338049
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 72

Get Book Here

Book Description
World Bank Technical Paper No. 352. Six years into the transition from planned to market economies in Central and Eastern Europe, high unemployment rates, including a growing proportion of the long-term unemployed, represent a serious challenge to social welfare systems and policymakers. This paper analyzes labor market development in nine transition countries of the region by focusing on the dynamics of labor force behavior, employment, and unemployment. The countries include Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia.

A Survey of Health Reform in Central Asia

A Survey of Health Reform in Central Asia PDF Author: Jeni Klugman
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 9780821338049
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 72

Get Book Here

Book Description
World Bank Technical Paper No. 352. Six years into the transition from planned to market economies in Central and Eastern Europe, high unemployment rates, including a growing proportion of the long-term unemployed, represent a serious challenge to social welfare systems and policymakers. This paper analyzes labor market development in nine transition countries of the region by focusing on the dynamics of labor force behavior, employment, and unemployment. The countries include Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia.

Health Care In Central Asia

Health Care In Central Asia PDF Author: Mckee
Publisher: Open University Press
ISBN:
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Get Book Here

Book Description
Central Asia remains one of the least known parts of the former Soviet Union. The five central Asian republics gained their unexpected independence in 1991. They have faced enormous challenges over the last decade in reforming their health care systems, including adverse macro-economic conditions and political instability. To varying extents, each country is diverging from a hierarchical and unsustainable Soviet model health care system. Common strategies have involved devolving the ownership of health services, seeking sources of revenue additional to shrinking state taxes, 'down-sizing' their excessive hospital systems, introducing general practitioners into primary care services, and enhancing the training of health professionals. This book draws on a decade of experience of what has worked and what has not. It is an invaluable source for those working in the region and for others interested in the experiences of countries in political and economic transition.

Golden Aging

Golden Aging PDF Author: Maurizio Bussolo
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464803544
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 363

Get Book Here

Book Description
Societies across Europe and Central Asia are aging, but people are not necessarily living longer. This demographic trend-caused by a decrease in fertility rather than improved longevity-presents both challenges and opportunities for governments, the private sector, and individuals alike. Some of the challenges are well known. Output per capita becomes smaller if it is shared with an increasingly larger group of dependent older people. At a certain point, there may not be sufficient resources to maintain the living standards of this older group, especially if rising expenditures on health care, long-term care, and pensions must be financed through the contributions and taxes paid by ever-smaller younger age groups. Working adults also contribute the most to the pool of savings. As the size of this group shrinks, savings will decline. But these challenges can be transformed into opportunities. Consider these examples: As longevity increases, workers tend to stay in the workforce longer, and, with the right incentives, they will increase their savings. Many current workers, and perhaps even more in the future, will thus not necessarily become dependent once they turn 65. And with slower population growth and smaller young age groups, societies will have an opportunity to improve the quality of education and maintain productivity. Firms in some countries are already adapting by capitalizing on skills that appreciate with age. Cardiovascular diseases account for more than half the difference in life expectancy (above age 50) between the region and Western Europe for men and 75 percent of the corresponding difference for women. Healthier behavior and health systems focused on preventive care could, with no cost increase, dramatically reduce this risk. These opportunities are not to be missed. As populations age, public discourse ranges from concerns about economic decline and fiscal sustainability of pensions and health systems to optimism about opportunities for healthier and more productive aging. The main contribution of Golden Aging is perhaps to show that demography and its consequences are not fixed. Much will depend on how people, firms, and societies adapt and how policy makers and institutions facilitate their behavioral adjustments. The future for Europe and Central Asia does not have to be gray-it can be a golden era of healthy, active, and prosperous aging.

The Development of Civil Society in Central Asia

The Development of Civil Society in Central Asia PDF Author: Janice Giffen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781897748756
Category : Asia, Central
Languages : en
Pages : 197

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book considers the applicability and use of civil society, both as a concept and in practice, in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The volume examines whether civil society organisations (CSOs) are a progressive force for change, or a safety net. Various forms of CSOs are investigated: NGOs and community based organisations, trade unions, political parties and religious groups, as well as more long-standing soviet and traditional institutions and practices. The book contains lessons and perspectives about civil society growth across time, and considers future directions.

Analyzing Health Equity Using Household Survey Data

Analyzing Health Equity Using Household Survey Data PDF Author: Adam Wagstaff
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821369342
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 234

Get Book Here

Book Description
Have gaps in health outcomes between the poor and better off grown? Are they larger in one country than another? Are health sector subsidies more equally distributed in some countries than others? Are health care payments more progressive in one health care financing system than another? What are catastrophic payments and how can they be measured? How far do health care payments impoverish households? Answering questions such as these requires quantitative analysis. This in turn depends on a clear understanding of how to measure key variables in the analysis, such as health outcomes, health expenditures, need, and living standards. It also requires set quantitative methods for measuring inequality and inequity, progressivity, catastrophic expenditures, poverty impact, and so on. This book provides an overview of the key issues that arise in the measurement of health variables and living standards, outlines and explains essential tools and methods for distributional analysis, and, using worked examples, shows how these tools and methods can be applied in the health sector. The book seeks to provide the reader with both a solid grasp of the principles underpinning distributional analysis, while at the same time offering hands-on guidance on how to move from principles to practice.

Implementing Health Sector Reform in Central Asia

Implementing Health Sector Reform in Central Asia PDF Author: Zuzana Feachem
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 9780821343371
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 172

Get Book Here

Book Description
It is easy for reformers and their overseas advisers to develop conceptually strong plans for health sector reform that appeal to governments, donors, and academics. Transforming these plans into successful action has proved to be extremely difficult. Toward the goal of improving assistance to this sector, the Economic Development Institute (EDI) of the World Bank held a seminar in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan in June 1996. This publication provides a summary of the proceedings and papers presented at that seminar. It was attended by delegations from five countries in Central Asia and from Azerbaijan and Mongolia. The content of this volume emphasizes topics central to the restructuring of health sector financing and health care delivery systems at a time of transition to market economies and to democracy. Maintaining and improving the health status of the population while preventing rapid escalation of health care expenditure were the recurrent themes throughout the seminar.

Central Asia in World History

Central Asia in World History PDF Author: Peter B. Golden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199793174
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Get Book Here

Book Description
A vast region stretching roughly from the Volga River to Manchuria and the northern Chinese borderlands, Central Asia has been called the "pivot of history," a land where nomadic invaders and Silk Road traders changed the destinies of states that ringed its borders, including pre-modern Europe, the Middle East, and China. In Central Asia in World History, Peter B. Golden provides an engaging account of this important region, ranging from prehistory to the present, focusing largely on the unique melting pot of cultures that this region has produced over millennia. Golden describes the traders who braved the heat and cold along caravan routes to link East Asia and Europe; the Mongol Empire of Chinggis Khan and his successors, the largest contiguous land empire in history; the invention of gunpowder, which allowed the great sedentary empires to overcome the horse-based nomads; the power struggles of Russia and China, and later Russia and Britain, for control of the area. Finally, he discusses the region today, a key area that neighbors such geopolitical hot spots as Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China.

Implementing Health Financing Reform

Implementing Health Financing Reform PDF Author: Joseph Kutzin
Publisher: World Health Organization
ISBN:
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 438

Get Book Here

Book Description
Analyses the experience with the financing reforms implemented by the countries of Central Europe, Eastern Europe, the Cauxasus and Central Asia.

A Health Sector Strategy for the Europe and Central Asia Region

A Health Sector Strategy for the Europe and Central Asia Region PDF Author: Verdon S. Staines
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 9780821344811
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 98

Get Book Here

Book Description
The health systems inherited by transition countries of Europe and Central Asia (ECA) are changing in response to fundamental and unprecedented challenges. Although the desired shape of future health systems in many ECA countries is discernible, the process for getting there must be invented along the way. 'A Health Sector Strategy for the Europe and Central Asia Region' reviews substantive issues facing health policymakers in ECA. It summarizes the World Bank's experience so far in this arena and the lessons it suggests. Furthermore, it outlines both an external strategy by which the Bank's ECA health staff could assist countries to restructure their health systems and an internal strategy by which the staff could organize their own activities to achieve this result. The publication offers those outside the Bank a basis for professional dialogue to foster constructive change in the Bank's approaches.

Subsidy Reform in the Middle East and North Africa

Subsidy Reform in the Middle East and North Africa PDF Author: Mr.Carlo A Sdralevich
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1498350437
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 130

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries price subsidies are common, especially on food and fuels. However, these are neither well targeted nor cost effective as a social protection tool, often benefiting mainly the better off instead of the poor and vulnerable. This paper explores the challenges of replacing generalized price subsidies with more equitable social safety net instruments, including the short-term inflationary effects, and describes the features of successful subsidy reforms.