Health Policy Reform in the Countries of the Former Soviet Union

Abstract

This chapter explores health policy reform in the countries that emerged from the former Soviet Union — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan — excluding the Baltic states that acceded to the European Union (EU) in 2004 (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). The post-Soviet countries offer fascinating material for comparative health policy analysis, since they have a common legacy and similar starting points, yet embarked on widely varying developments after gaining independence in 1991. This is partly due to the wider socio-economic and political context of the 12 countries discussed in this chapter, but also the result of conscious political decisions that afforde health a higher or — more often — lower priority in government agendas. Other countries can learn from the effects these decisions had on the functioning and performance of health systems and thus avoid repeating the same mistakes. Yet, much of the focus of the international literature has been on countries in Cen- tral and Eastern Europe that have acceded to the EU in recent years and much less attention has been paid to the former Soviet countries that have remained outside the EU. This chapter aims to redress this imbalance.