STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT PROGAM IN RUSSIA

World Bank Approves Largest-Ever Loan to Russia for Structural Reforms

Structural adjustment is a term used to describe the policy changes implemented by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (the Bretton Woods Institutions) in developing countries. These policy changes are conditions (Conditionalities) for getting new loans from the IMF or World Bank, or for obtaining lower interest rates on existing loans. Conditionalities are implemented to ensure that the money lent will be spent in accordance with the overall goals of the loan. The Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) are created with the goal of reducing the borrowing country's fiscal imbalances.The IMF has helped foster a severe depression in Russia. Russia in the 1990s has witnessed a peacetime economic contraction of unprecedented scale--with the number of Russians in poverty rising from 2 million to 60 million since the IMF came to post-Communist Russia. The IMF's "shock therapy"--sudden and intense structural adjustment--helping bring about this disaster. Given the monopoly structure of the economy, as well as the large amount of cash savings accumulated by Russian households, inflation soared 520 percent in the first three months. Millions of people saw their savings and pensions reduced tocrumbs.

Washington, August 6, 1998 The World Bank today approved a new US$1.5 billion structural adjustment loan to the Russian Federation to support accelerated economic reforms needed to stimulate lasting growth, and to cushion the social impact of the transition to a market economy. The loan - which is part of the US$22.6 billion lending package from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Japanese Government announced last month by the Russian Government - is the largest-ever made by the Bank in Europe and Central Asia. It is also the third in a series of Bank structural adjustment loans made to Russia since June, 1997. The two previous loans totaled US$600 million and US$800 million, respectively.

Agenda for Change

As Russia has completed its first phase of reforms in its transition to a market economy which has reduced inflation, lowered trade tariffs, and ended both price controls and centralized planning, the World Bank believes that the country's immediate priority must be to act in four key areas that will contribute directly to the resumption of growth and the maintenance of economic stability.

Reform of Infrastructure Monopolies

Improving efficiency, transparency, and competition in Russia's electricity, gas, oil, and railways monopolies should produce substantial benefits for the rest of the economy by stimulating lower costs, easing production bottlenecks, and promoting investment.

Private Sector Development

Dynamic private sector development will be key to the resumption of sustained growth in Russia. With price and trade liberalization substantially completed, promoting the private sector will mainly depend on a combination of reforms that would create a fertile business climate.

Fiscal Management

Fiscal reform has become an essential condition for restoring market confidence in Russia's ability to complete its transformation into a market economy. The World Bank believes that the Russian Government is keenly aware of its need for fiscal reform, in particular, sharply reducing government borrowing and improving the way it manages its finances.

Banking Sector Reform

Comprehensive reform of Russia's banking sector is a prerequisite for long-term economic stability and a robust financial system.

This third structural adjustment loan also complements the Bank's previous efforts to support Russia in creating a social protection system that meets the needs of a market economy, in particular a US$800 million Social Protection Adjustment Loan and a US$28.6 million Social Protection Implementation loan approved in June and October 1997, respectively.The loan is repayable in seven years, including a three-year grace period, at the standard LIBOR-based interest rate of US single currency loans. So far, the Bank's commitments to the Russian Federation total about US$11.4 billion for 41 projects.

Aissatou Nafi Maiga

GEM RUSSIA

THE INEQUALITY BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN IN RUSSIA?

The richest and most successful are the men. As of March 2009, there were 32 billionaires in Russia, and not a single name on that list belongs to a woman alone. Women’s role in this society continues to be seen as traditional, while the financial power is reserved for men.

Despite the fact that women are on average more educated than men in Moscow, they hold little over 15% of management positions. Naturally, there are very few women who made their way up to the top, but the same women happen to be married to Russia’s most affluent men.

HDI RUSSIA

Human Development Index (HDI) A composite index measuring average achievement in three basic dimensions of human development – a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living. The HDI rank is determined using using HDI values to the sixthdecimal point. Performance in each dimension is expressed as a value between 0 and 1, the higher the number the better the result.

Because of the closed nature of its politics, Russia's HDI figures only begin in 1990 where they show a HDI figure of 0.818. These statistics were taken in between the period when Russia was rejecting communism and the eventual end of the USSR in December 1991. In those years a great deal of hardship was endured by the Russian people (as they have always done in their history unfortunately) and this is reflected in the 1995 HDI figure of 0.771. The political turmoil in those years naturally eroded people's standard of living. The HDI figure for 2000 was 0.785 and in 2004 it was 0.797, which shows that in the decade or so since 1995, life for ordinary Russians has improved, but has yet to reach the standard set in the last days of the Soviet Union.


HDI (2001) :0.775
HDI (2003) :0.795
HDI(2005): 0.802
HDI (2006) :0.806
HDI (2007) : 0.817

Aissatou Nafi Maiga

2 DIFFERENT INTEREST GROUPS IN RUSSIA

FIRST INTEREST GROUP
Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia

Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia is an association of academics and scholars whose research interests are related to the Russian empire during the 'long' eighteenth century - that is, from the start of Peter I's reign in 1682 to the death of Alexander I in 1825.
The stategy is the creation of a wesbsite in order to :

• to provide members with news about meetings, conferences and relevant publications

• to carry information for the wider academic community about the Study Group's activities
• to archive and digitise the contents of the Study Group's Newsletter for wider academic accessibility.

Projects realised

New Book on the Princes Kantemir

A new work on Prince Dmitrii Kantemir and his son Antiokh by Stefan Lemny (head of the history collection at the Bibliothèque nationale de France) has recently been published in French by Éditions Complexe.

VIII International Conference of the Study Group - Durham 2009

A conference at Van Mildert College, University of Durham, in the United Kingdom. The dates for the conference were from Saturday 4 July to Thursday 9 July 2009.
The theme of the conference was Russian history and culture during the long eighteenth century (i.e. late c17th - early c19th centuries).

PLAN

2010 Meeting of the Study Group

2010 Meetinghe next UK meeting of the Study Group will take place Monday 4 to Wednesday 6 January 2010 at the High Leigh Conference Centre, Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire. of the Study Group

Aissatou Nafi Maiga

CURRENT NEWS HAPPENING IN RUSSIA

SCANDAL. Forward to the past: FSB bans selling modems without a passport

Publication time: 7 September 2009, 14:28

FSB has remembered days when all radios receivers in the Soviet Union were subjected to obligatory registration, and is going to adapt old rules to the conditions of "information revolution", says InfoxRu website.

A draft prohibiting selling of USB-modems without a passport is being developed in the department.

Lawyers and technical experts are assured of meaninglessness of the initiatives of FSB: registration of the buyers of USB-modems actually would not identify the subscriber, as modems that work with networks of Wi-Fi and WiMAX, do not transmit registration information to the network.

Meanwhile the Lubyanka (FSB HQ) has considered selling USB-modems without a passport an "abnormal practice". As a result, the FSB is developing a draft that restricts selling of mobile devices.

Now, a passport is required when purchasing a USB-modem only in cases when the device is got along with a SIM-card, or when a contract with the subscriber is concluded at the purchasing.

The independent experts are surprised at the initiative of law enforcement agencies. They admit that they do not understand how a change in the rules of selling USB-modems will give the FSB new information on users.

There are modems designed to operate in networks, which provide a rigid identification of subscriber's terminal, it is a GSM and CDMA. This allows you to attach a hardware ID to the individual subscriber. As for Wi-Fi and WiMAX, that modem is not transmitting to the network registration information, it is absolutely senseless to sell them by passport.

Wi-Fi or WiMAX networks works with any modem, that address to them, so it is not a problem to buy a modem in Ukraine and use it in Moscow", experts commenting on the initiative of FSB.

Department of Monitoring,
Kavkaz Center

Russian commander 'used' special troops to block police search of relative's factory

Publication time: 23 September 2009, 02:38

One of Russia's most senior military commanders is being investigated over claims he used special forces troops to block a police search of a factory owned by his fugitive son-in-law.

The allegations, made in the liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta, have prompted the defence ministry to launch a probe that threatens the career of Lieutenant General Vladimir Shamanov, head of Russia's airborne troops.

A Kremlin favourite, the general is a decorated Hero of Russia and commanded Russian forces in the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia last year.

The scandal is an awkward test case for the Kremlin's high-profile war on corruption, while Kremlin critics say it confirms their fears that the practice of abusing official office for personal ends has become routine.

"This is simply beyond the realm of good and evil," Yevgenia Albats, editor of liberal magazine New Times, told Ekho Moskvy radio. "That General Shamanov takes Special Forces troops and sends them off to solve his personal issues is a nightmare situation."

The allegations are backed by a leaked police intercept of General Shamanov's mobile telephone conversations in which he is heard ordering a subordinate to mobilise twenty Special forces troops to stop and "intern" a police investigator trying to search a Moscow factory. According to Novaya Gazeta, the factory, valued at up to m, is owned by the general's son-in-law. His son sits on the board, and his daughter is laying claim to half ownership. The general's son-in-law is a fugitive from justice who is wanted for attempted murder.

General Shamanov told Novaya Gazeta he refused to comment on what he said was a personal matter, dismissing the allegations as provocative rumours. If he does lose his job, human rights activists will not shed any tears. They accuse him of presiding over numerous war crimes in Chechnya. The General, 52, denies wrongdoing.

Source: Agencies

Kavkaz Center

Puppet Dagestani Official Killed in Moscow

Publication time: 30 September 2009, 07:15

A senior Dagestan official who survived three assassination attempts at home has
been shot dead by gunmen in southwestern Moscow, investigators said Monday.

One suspect, a 32-year-old Dagestani resident, was detained while apparently
driving a getaway car.

Two gunmen fired at least 20 rounds at Alim-Sultan Alkhmatov, head of Dagestan's
Khasavyurt district, from automatic rifles as he and two bodyguards got out of a
car at about 8:15 p.m. Sunday at 21/1 Novocheryomushkinskaya Ulitsa, the
Investigative Committee said.

One bodyguard was wounded in the attack.

Alkhmatov, 44, died from his injuries while being rushed to the hospital in an
ambulance.

"The actions of the group of criminals were very well-planned," Anatoly
Bagmet, chief of the Moscow branch of the Investigative Committee, said in
remarks from the crime scene broadcast on Vesti-24 state television.

Source: Agencies

Kavkaz Center

Aissatou Nafi Maiga

RUSSIA Overview

RUSSIA'S President: Vladimir Putin


A/Physical Aspect of Russia
In terms of territory, Russia is the world's largest country. With a total area of 17,075,200 kilometers (6,592,735 square miles), Russia covers about one-eighth of the world's land surface. Russia is 60 percent larger than the world's second-largest country, Canada. But, like Canada, much of Russia's territory is located above the 50th parallel, where subarctic and arctic weather conditions are prevalent.
Russia stretches from its westernmost point in the city of Kaliningrad, just north of Warsaw, Poland, to its easternmost point at Big Diomede Island in the Bering Strait. Within eyesight is Little Diomede Island, belonging to the United States just off the coast of Alaska's Seward Peninsula. Russia's great breadth of territory includes many different geographical regions. These include areas of permafrost (areas of eternal ice) in Siberia and the Far North as well as taiga and steppes (vast grassland). Much of Russia's northern and eastern coastline is hemmed in by ice for much of the year, complicating navigation. However, Russia has year-round warm water seaports at Murmansk on its northwestern coastline of the Barents Sea and at Vladivostok at the far eastern coast on the Sea of Japan.
B/Population
Russia's population is predominantly urban, with 73% of its population of 141,903,979 citizens residing in urban areas.^[2] Russia has experienced a population loss of about 5 million since it peaked shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. Currently, population growth is nearly stagnant, with an overall growth rate of -0.02% since the start of 2009.^[3]
The United States Census Bureau estimates that Russia's population will decline from the current 143 million to a mere 111 million by 2050, a loss of more than 30 million people and a decrease of more than 20%.

Roughly 80 percent of Russia's population is ethnic Russian. The remaining 20 percent is made up of a wide variety of ethnic groups including Tatar, Ukrainian, Belarussian, Moldavian, Kazakh, and many others.The country was made up of more than 100 ethnic or "national" groups. About three-fourths of the population of Russia is urban. Moscow, Russia's capital and largest city, is home to some 9 million people. Russia has a well-educated population with near universal literacy.

Previously Russia was the world's sixth most populous country, following China, India, the United States, Indonesia, and Brazil.

C/Regime Type

In accounting for why Russia stood on the brink of disintegration in the 1990s, most analysts neglected to account for why it managed to hold together. The tools developed for understanding regionalism in Russia left little room for explaining (much less predicting) how regional mobilization against the state might be contained or even reversed. In this regard, Vladimir Putin’s rule has been striking for the speed and apparent ease with which the Kremlin managed to tame the regions. And contrary to expectations, regional leaders greeted the increasingly authoritarian re-centralization of power in the Kremlin not with jeers, but with applause. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in four Russian regions, the paper argues that the tide of regionalism was reversed by the activation of integrative practices along Russia’s internal borders. The research makes an original contribution to the empirical literature on post-Soviet politics in accounting for the puzzling success of the Kremlin’s regional policy under Putin. It further contributes to the theoretical understanding of borders in political science by conceptualizing the relationship of internal borders to regime type and processes of state formation.