Welfare System Financing in Belarus
Abstract
The topic of welfare sector development in Belarus is nowadays of huge interest since by means of welfare development level it is possible to judge the level and the country’s economic system and the quality of public sector services as well.
In recent years, especially in time of recession, the welfare sector positions in Belarus have been considerably weakened. And this is partly explained by the aspiration to keep the old Soviet designs in the welfare system construction. At the same time, when national and subnational budgets are being planned, the governments try to hold with great difficulty the budgetary indicators of welfare sphere at the level of last years. Such attempts, however, lead to the saving of budgetary funds only and they influence the deterioration of the welfare quality.
The present paper pursues the aim to show: (i) what tendencies of social budgetary policy can be observed in the time of economic recession (ii), how consistent was the welfare orientation of the central and local budgets in practice and (iii) what prospect ways for welfare sector improvement are there in Belarus.
This paper considers the Belarusian welfare branches in national budget and subnational ones, their structure, dynamics and other important indicators. The comparative analysis of welfare sector branches with other European countries is submitted. The paper opens with the inconsistent policy of the Belarusian authorities in the sphere of welfare branches funding. Prospect issues of welfare sphere finance reformation in Belarus in time of an economic crisis are considered.
Keywords
Belarus, Budget, Welfare
Author Biography
Yuri Krivorotko
Yuri Krivorotko is a Professor in Public and Corporate Finance and Accounting, Head of the accounting, analysis and auditing department at the Private Belarusian Institute of Jurisprudence. He received the Candidate of Economic Sciences degree at the Belarusian Academy of Sciences (equivalent of Ph.D) in 1986. In 2011 he received a Full Doctoral degree in finance and international economy at the Sankt Petersburg State University of economics and finance. He has been an alumnus of the Central European Summer University (2001) on the program “Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations and Local Financial Management”. Now he is an expert in Local Government finance sphere at the nongovernmental organisation “Lev Sapieha Foundation”. The field of his interests is public finance, local financial management and intergovernmental fiscal relations, corporate financial management. Professor Krivorotko authored and co-authored ten books and more than one hundred articles and working papers. One of his books “Financial tools of regional and local government in Belarus and in post-socialist countries” has been published in 2009 (in Russian language) is well-known in post soviet countries. A chapter about Belarus local government finance has been published by “Elgar Book” publishing house in book “Local Public Finance in Central and Eastern Europe” (2008). Recently a monograph “Theory and practice of interbudgetary relations in Belarus in context of world integration processes’ harmonisation” (2012) has been published in Germany (in Russian language). Yuri Krivorotko is annually participating in NISPAсee conferences on Public finance and accounting working group and he is an Individual member of NISPAcee. He is also CoE expert of from Belarus by the local finance benchmarking project (2015-2017).
Andrei Blakhin
Andrei Blakhin is a Post graduate student of the Sankt – Petersburg State Economic University by the PhD program. In 2011 he received a Master degree in finance at the Belarusian State Economic University. The field of his interests is public finance, local financial management, public and private partnership. He authored and co-authored ten articles and working papers.
Andrei Blakhin participated in NISPAсee conference 2017 on working group of Public finance and accounting in Kazan. Currently he is finishing his doctoral thesis by the problems of welfare projects funding by means of PPPs in Belarus.