Serbia

National Human Development Report

Since 1990, UNDP has been publishing annual Global Human Development Reports to review the status of human development in the world, and advocate for policies and systems of governance which promote, support and sustain improvements in the quality of people’s lives. In providing tangible support to these advocacy activities with statistical evidence, UNDP has developed the Human Development Index, a summary indicator of human development and an instrument for monitoring progress over time.

In 1994, UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS launched National Human Development Reports (NHDRs) in all countries of the region. Since then, the NHDRs have made important contributions to increase awareness among people on the state of well being in a country. They have also played a significant role in drawing attention of policy makers and citizens to key development priorities. They have, in the process, generated much debate and dialogue often resulting in tangible policy changes and the introduction of new programmes.

The 2010 Human Development Study for Serbia:

The study presents the state of human development in Serbia 2010. It measures achievements in the area of human development and examines the factors that provide an incentive or present an obstacle. The concept of human development, empirically investigated in Serbia since 1996, is utilized in this report in wider policy framework of social inclusion. In this regard, social inclusion is comprehended here both as a process and a goal of general development policy. Social inclusion policy in EU is rooted in attempt to balance between economic growth and social justice, i.e. to ensure legitimacy of European social system and sustainability of its’ development through improved inclusion of citizens in institutional setting and development processes.

The study is based on the relevant statistical and historical data that provide a broad framework for a meaningful analysis, as well as the data from the survey conducted towards the end of 2009 (referred to as “Social Exclusion Survey”), which allow concurrent analysis of a variety of exclusion factors and exact identification of the core factors of multiple exclusion from the processes and outcomes of human development.

Human development indicator values in Serbia have grown in the past years and reached the average values of the countries in the South Eastern Europe region (UNDP, 2008). Some social inclusion indicators, such as employment and unemployment rates, did not give good signals, although they had shown signs of improvement before the world economic crisis affected Serbia in 2009. Other indicators, such as poverty rate and participation in education, were much better.

The 20th anniversary of UN Human Development Report and the European Year for Combating Poverty provided Serbia with the opportunity to conduct a national study of the effects of poverty on human development. The year 2010 is not only marked by these topics but also by novelties in their analysis. On one hand, this year in Serbia in many research and analyses a step was made away from the topic of poverty towards the wider and more relevant topic of social inclusion as a multidimensional phenomenon and process determining the position of individuals in a system of wellbeing and the degree of general cohesion in a society. On the other hand, the methodology for measuring human development also experienced a series of innovations that highlighted the multidimensional nature of this concept and introduced more precise measurement that enables finer classification of countries according to achievements in human development dimensions.