Events → EPIN

EPIN annual meeting to be held in Mink, Belarus

The annual EPIN meeting is planned to take place on Dec 9-11, 2008, in Mink, Belarus. IPM Research Center, EPIN member institution from Belarus, will be a hosting organization. The presentation of all eight completed research works conducted under EPIN Small Grants Scheme is planned to take place. The research works were conducted by the junior researchers at the EPIN member institutions and are published here. Another important event to take place during the meeting is a presentation of the Human Development Research and Policy Network (HDPN), the next, more advanced, stage of EPIN.

HDPN - an expansion of the EPIN - seeks to support and promote initiatives aimed at improving the understanding of the economic aspects of human development, social inclusion and strengthening regional cooperation in Eurasia. The network expects to provide a platform to initiate, implement, and coordinate actions focused in the area of human development and social inclusion in the countries undergoing economic transition. The initiative reflects an ambition to develop a framework of support towards the introduction of human development focused policy research in the Eastern Europe and CIS region.

Following the presentation, the participants will receive training modules on human development and MDGs. The trainings and the meeting itself will promote the human development approach in the analysis of economic policies; raise awareness on the impact of economic policies on vulnerable groups and provide analytical tools in this regard, and certainly, will promote the networking among EPIN members.

Invited audience

Conference will be addressed to researchers, policy experts and analysts, mostly from academia, economic policy research institutes from the EPIN network and partners from Eastern Europe and CIS.

Context and background

Economic research in countries of the Former Soviet Union and Western Balkans continues to be characterized by narrow understanding of economic issues and a shortage of advanced research skills. Economic education focuses mainly on mainstream economic fundamentals, such as economic growth, monetary economics, international trade, etc. Only modest attention is instead given to issues such as social policy, human development, social inclusion, gender economics, environmental economics, or economics of the health system. Whereas universities may provide incentives for economic and especially human development focused research and analytical work, smaller independent research organizations are seldom able to offer trainings, and other capacity development initiatives, in the areas of poverty reduction, human development, and social inclusion. On the other hand it has to be broadly understood that "… a focus on human development must be included from the beginning of any reform program. Economic growth itself will not be sustained unless preceded or accompanied by improvements in human development".

As a result of the need to strengthen national ownership of economic reform and to promote East-East cooperation, UNDP sponsored the creation of a network of economic think-tanks in Europe and CIS. The UNDP Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS (RBEC) established in 2004 the Economic Policy Institutes Network (EPIN). The first phase focused on the establishment of the network and on the strengthening the managerial and research capacity of its first members. This has been pursued through:

knowledge sharing between EU and CIS/SEE institutions
development and organization of training programmes
facilitation of joint research and mentorship programs
organization of workshops and joint meetings

The network is made of three groups of institutions:

Target institutes from the Balkans, Western CIS and Central Asia
Resource institutes from Central and Eastern Europe
Affiliated partners (i.e. research centers, consulting firms and other services providers that provide expertise, training, and relevant services)

For more information please contact:

massimiliano.riva@undp.org

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