From ‘Outgrowing’ to ‘In-Built’ Strategies: Pension Reform in the Transition Economies

This chapter highlights important pension system reform policy lessons that may be derived from recent international practice and experience. It considers the National Provident Fund (NPF) model, a simple institutional form of social security provision weakly regarded by both the World Bank and the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The chapter focuses on one dimension, albeit, arguably - and particularly so in the long run - the most important dimension of social security and social policy reconstruction in all the transition economies of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Baltic States and the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union (NIS/FSU), pension reform. It addresses some of the important policy lessons to be derived from the experience of pension system reform in CEE and the Baltic States and NIS/FSU.