Geneva
UNECE releases its Innovation Performance Review of Belarus. The publication, which just came out of print, was presented at the fourth session of the UNECE Team of Specialists on Innovation and Competitiveness Policies, Geneva, 12-13 May 2011.
The Innovation Performance Review of Belarus provides a set of recommendations and policy options to stimulate innovation activity in the country, enhance its innovation capacity and improve the overall efficiency of the national innovation system. Close collaboration with the national authorities and other Belarusian experts throughout the project has helped in identifying issues of practical importance to policymakers and in ensuring the relevance of the Review conclusions and recommendations to national circumstances. H.E. Mikhail Khvostov, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Belarus to the United Nations Office at Geneva, underlined the relevance of this project and the importance attached by Belarusian authorities to innovation policies.
Mr. Antonius Broek, Resident Coordinator of the United Nations Office in Belarus, stressed the significance of this initiative and expressed his hope that the “recommendations and conclusions of this report will be quickly translated into a reform agenda and supported by many partners”. He added that the issues of innovation and modernization are at the centre of the new United Nations Development Assistance Framework that the United Nations agencies and the government of Belarus signed recently.
The participatory policy advisory service behind this publication was carried out by a group of international experts and experts from the UNECE secretariat in close cooperation with the national authorities and local experts, responding to a request by the Government of the Republic of Belarus. The main outcomes of this project, including its preliminary conclusions and recommendations, were discussed during the substantive segment of the fifth session of CECI (Geneva, 1 – 3 December 2010). The 64th session of ECE (29 – 31 March 2011) supported the undertaking of Innovation Performance Reviews within the mandate of the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Integration.
The undertaking of this project was made possible thanks to the generous financial contribution of the Eurasian Development Bank.  The United Nations Development Programme Office in Belarus provided logistic support and contributed to the substantive work.
There is a growing demand for advisory services related to innovation and knowledge-based development from UNECE member states with economies in transition. After the pilot project in Belarus, work on the preparation of the Innovation Performance Review of Kazakhstan has already started. The preliminary conclusions and recommendations of this new Review will be discussed at the sixth session of the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Integration (30 November-2 December 2011).
The publication is available at: http://live.unece.org/DAM/ceci/publications/icp4.pdf
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Ref: ECE/ECID/11/P03