Back to the page “Final Report of the HDSE Project” 

PREFACE

This synthetic report draws upon the individual reports and questionnaire responses of the network of correspondents of the first phase of the Human Dignity and Social Exclusion initiative (HDSE). The reports required broad-ranging competencies and needed to be completed in a short space of time. Sincere thanks are due to the members of the network.

The individual country reports were prepared in two stages. First, by responding to questionnaires on five policy areas (health, employment, social protection, education and housing); second, by preparing country reports based on the structure of the questionnaires. The individual country reports prepared by the correspondents are available from the Council of Europe, Directorate of Economic and Social Affairs. The results of the initial questionnaires are appended to this report. The correspondents are :
Feliciana Rajevska, Latvia; Anu Narusk, Estonia, Rasa Alisauskiene, Lithuania; Ludmilla Dziewiecka-Bokun, Poland; Magda Kotýnková, Czech Republic; Katalin Lévai, Hungary; Mojyca Novak, Slovenia; Iveta Radicová, Slovak Republic; Teuta Starova, Albania; Catalin Zamfir, Romania; Tudor Danii, Moldova; Dragana Avramov (housing); Cezary Wlodarczyk (health); Dominique Meurs and Joseph Prelis (employment); Francis Kessler (social protection questionnaire), Georgios Tsiakalos (education questionnaire).

Awareness of poverty and social exclusion has risen amongst governments and peoples across Europe. In most former communist and state-socialist countries, poverty has become a visible, widespread, painful and possibly temporary phenomenon of the period of transition to plural democracies and market economies. Social exclusion, which involves ejection and rejection from a place and relationships in society, may rise alongside poverty, and persist even when and where poverty declines (Chapter 1 discusses the distinction between poverty and social exclusion). This report concludes that social exclusion is an intrinsic risk in liberal societies, and that governments which aspire to social cohesion must give a higher priority to diminution of this risk, and its discontents (Chapter 7 discusses the concepts of risk and opportunity).

In a broad review of five policy areas (health, employment, social protection, education and housing) as they may impact on the least advantaged, this report signals some of the key trends and issues which must be addressed (Chapters 2-6 of this report). Central and eastern European countries have been accorded specific attention in this, which are the focus of this report, since there is less information immediately available about their capacity to combat the emerging risk of social exclusion.In a broad review of five policy areas (health, employment, social protection, education and housing) as they may impact on the least advantaged, this report signals some of the key trends and issues which must be addressed (Chapters 2-6 of this report).

As the first step in considering social exclusion from a European perspective, thisThis first report of the HDSE initiative is necessarily illustrative and very general. Even with much greater resources, the nature, extent and risks of social exclusion would not be fully documented. Some kinds of information are not available, some data are not collected. Further, the transition is just that, and many European economies and societies are in a state of flux.

The report makes some suggestions concerning data and policy monitoring requirements, if those at risk of social exclusion are to be given a higher policy priority.

Given the priority task of making a broad sweep, this report does not focus on level of generality of this report, and the resources available, it is not possible to clarify the differences as well as the similarities between countries, and certainly not for individual countries. Nevertheless, there is everywhere a remarkable congruence emerging in the nature of the risks confronting the least advantaged. What is more, the risks are similar in nature (though of varying severity) to those in western Europe. Markets generate opportunities and risks. States can choose to reinforce or moderate the effects of these forcesredistribute this distribution.