The main objective of this OSCE project is to create evidence including in the context of conflict/crisis  to be used in the long term for improved programming and policy-making.

The contractor will be expected to undertake all aspects of work relating to the survey and additional qualitative research, including:

• pre-test/pilot study of the new conflict module;
• development of country/area specific research tools;
• qualitative key expert interviews and focus group discussions;
• interviewer selection (female interviewers only);
• interviewer training;
• random selection of respondents;
• questionnaire finalisation and translation of fieldwork and interviewer training materials;
• all fieldwork/data collection;
• data entry and processing;
• data analysis and drafting several thematic and regional reports.

The data will be collected through the use of structured, quantitative survey interviews and additional key expert interviews and focus group discussions. The survey interviews will be carried out face-to-face in each country/area by female interviewers who have completed in-depth, in-person training dedicated to the topic of the survey.

The interviews will be conducted using a standardised questionnaire already developed. Part of the contract will be testing revisions on this questionnaire and finalizing it.

The required net sample size is a minimum of 1500 women per country/area using a strict random (probability) sample.

The Contractor will be responsible for ensuring the quality, consistency and timeliness of work carried out in each country/area selected to take part in the study. The consistency of the methods and procedures applied in the various countries/areas and strict compliance with the detailed methodology of the survey needs to be ensured by the Contractor. The foreseen total duration of the assignment is 15 months.

Related Stories

• Implementation of the Project “Promoting awareness-raising tools on combating sexual exploitation through internet (social theatre) (2016)”
• Provision of Printing and related Services for the OSCE
• Provision of IT Security Consulting Services on IT Information Security Incident Response

Specialist insurance broker GrECo acquires 100% of MAI CEE Ltd., a major risk, insurance and employee benefits consultant in CEE.

The EU BON workshop "Biodiversity research for and by citizens in Eastern Europe: tools, information services and public engagement" was organized to present the EU BON citizen science gateway, share accomplishments of the project, promote products, raise and discuss challenges of citizen science and facilitate networking between countries, especially eastern and central European countries.

There were 33 participants from Baltic countries and Finland and EU BON partners from Norway, Spain, Israel and Brussels. First day was showcasing the citizen science initiatives in Estonia, following best practice examples from EU BON consortium. During the second day the participants got a chance to learn the tools and methods for citizen science data management by ECSA and EU BON. This was followed by world cafe style discussion about the needs of citizen science initiatives and Pan-European citizen science gateway. One of the important conclusions for Baltic countries is that there is a need for stronger collaboration and supportive infrastructure to make citizen science more effective and also deliver accessible data to research community.

Some workshop participants also took part of Tartu Mini-BioBlitz on 29th June, first BioBlitz in Estonia. BioBlitz participants observed 239 species of animals, plants and fungi .

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Workshop agenda

Read a first hand report form the workshop in the two great blog posts by Egle Marija Ramanauskaite (a workshop participant from Lithuania):

http://seplute.tumblr.com/post/146841955105/citsci-overtakes-the-baltics-citizen-science

http://seplute.tumblr.com/post/146844410470/citizen-science-workshop-in-tartu-recap-of-day-2

Investigators say they believe a Wisconsin kayaker missing since mid-August faked his death before fleeing to Europe. 

Finding love in Eastern Europe has never been so easy on the leading Eastern European dating platform

Bridesandlovers.com is growing fast

Approved For R se 2006IMN:FqF)IM7191D 64AQ'200020025-0 73 #216 EASTERN EUROPEN INTELLIGENCER OCI #1010/72 21 Nov. 1972 East European Reaction to Brandt's Reelection East European commentary varied only slightly in tone in its positive assessment of the election....

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Approved For FaseO(ibNCBWECkIUM*t9B00864A1200020023-2 #217 EASTERN EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCER OCI #1011/72 22 Nov. 1972 83 US-Polish Relations Remain Warm US-Polish relations have been so good in recent weeks that our DCM in Warsaw felt compelled to comment on them....

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Total media ad spend in Russia to drop nearly 50%   March 30, 2022 (New York, NY) – Insider Intelligence expects the ongoing war in Ukraine to have a significant […]

Memory politics: the challenge of commemoration in post-Soviet Eastern Europe and the Caucasus 5 October 2021 — 1:00PM TO 2:30PM Anonymous (not verified) 21 September 2021 Online

This event explores how to address memory and commemoration in the former Soviet states, considering their role in political processes and violent conflict. 

How the past is remembered and commemorated plays a large role – perhaps too large – in contemporary political debates and in how conflicts are negotiated.

Perceptions of history influence people’s actions and are used to judge or dismiss the actions of others. Nowhere is this more so than in the political, territorial and social debates and disputes across the former Soviet Union.
 
This event examines how to address the problems caused by entrenched memory debates – and proposes a framework for ‘ethical political commemoration’ for use across historical enquiry, political processes, and conflict transformation initiatives.

The speakers explore the topic through the context of Turkey and the Armenian genocide, as well as more broadly through their own experiences in conflict transformation and peace processes.

Central and Eastern Europe become hawkish on China Expert comment LJefferson 16 September 2022

The recent withdrawal of the Baltic countries from the ‘17+1’ format displays changing perceptions of China due to its ambiguity towards the war in Ukraine.

While the Russian invasion of Ukraine only confirmed Central and Eastern Europe’s views of Russia, it is also affecting their relations with China. Although the relationship was already complicated due to unfulfilled Chinese economic promises to CEE countries and growing indications of efforts to influence their domestic politics, China’s support for Russia is pushing Central and Eastern Europeans even further away.

This shift was highlighted, and formalized, recently by several countries in the region leaving the ‘17+1’ format, through which China cooperates with a group of countries from the region. The shifting attitudes towards China will also influence the relationship between the European Union as a whole and China.

A Trojan Horse that never was

When the format was launched in 2012 between 16 CEE countries at the time and China, the countries jumping on board expected a wave of Chinese investment and an opportunity to diversify mostly west-bound trade.

These hopes never fully materialized as Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in CEE has been generally lower compared to the rest of Europe and China never became an important export destination for any of the countries. The growing disillusionment and concern about Chinese security threats has led to some of the countries speaking up about the perceived perils of closer cooperation.

The first to withdraw from what had become ‘17+1’ by 2021 was Lithuania, which also took an interest in strengthening ties with Taiwan and allowed it to open a Taiwanese representative office in Vilnius. This triggered a breakdown in the bilateral relations with China. As a retaliatory response, China blocked Lithuanian imports and imports from other EU states containing inputs from Lithuania, leading the EU to launch an official dispute at the WTO.

War in Ukraine

Since the invasion started, CEE countries have been dealing with large numbers of Ukrainian refugees, organizing shipments of military equipment to Ukraine, and at the same time worrying whether they could be next on Russia’s list.

However, the concerns and security environment that these countries face seems to be almost entirely disregarded by China. On the sidelines of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, Xi and Putin signed the joint communiqué in which China backed Moscow’s demands to reverse NATO borders to the pre-1997 situation, completely disregarding CEE’s security interests.

China’s implicit support for Russia after the invasion has sowed deep mistrust of its respect for the sovereignty of other nations. The Chinese diplomatic apparatus clearly noticed this changing mood among CEE governments and sent a special envoy to eight capitals in April-May tasked with ‘eliminating misunderstandings regarding Russia-Ukraine conflict’.

However, the trip was not particularly successful. The delegation failed to secure high-level meetings, with the most prominent case being the Polish minister of foreign affairs declining to meet Huo Yuzhen, the Chinese Special Councilor for CEEC cooperation. Given that Andrzej Duda, President of Poland, was the only head of an EU state who attended the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony just before the Russian invasion in February, the change in attitudes is clear.

Following the envoy’s visit to the Czech Republic, the Czech parliament’s foreign affairs committee unanimously approved a resolution calling for the country to quit the ‘16+1’ format and the government is expected to act upon it in the near future. Meanwhile, Latvia and Estonia recently jointly announced that they would no longer be participating in the cooperation framework, turning it into ‘14+1’.

While the Catholic Church confronts contemporary issues with a modern face, the Orthodox Church remains stubbornly entrenched in its Byzantine heritage.

Mar 14, 2024

The non-Soviet members of the Warsaw Pact contributed to the end of the Cold War along with the superpowers. These Eastern European states recognized that their relationship with the Soviet Union would impede their success in the post–Cold War world, so they ended the Pact.

medlinkAIDS/medlink-related deaths (!--ref1--) have decreased worldwide, except in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. According to the latest UNAIDS

München ; Wien : De Gruyter Oldenbourg, [2023]

Experts warn EU’s legal bedrock shaken by judgment on ECB’s bond-buying programme

8-10 October 2014, Paris, France: Discussions at this meeting will focus on implementing the Istanbul Anti-Corruption Action Plan; monitoring reports for Armenia and Kazakhstan; and, progress reports from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

This meeting will focus on the third round monitoring reports under the Istanbul Anti-Corruption Action Plan for Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine. The meeting will also include progress reports from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

This cross-country report on prevention of public sector corruption analyses the preventive measures that have proven to be effective and successful in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The review focuses on twenty-one countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and includes examples from OECD countries.

This cross-country report analyses the legislation on liability of legal persons for corruption and its enforcement in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, highlighting national practices that may be promoted as good practice. While it focuses on 25 countries participating in the Anti-Corruption Network for Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ACN), examples from OECD countries are also included.

21 April 2016, Paris: The OECD will host a High-Level Meeting on boosting the impact of anti-corruption reforms in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

This study explores what governments, business associations, NGOs, and companies do in order to strengthen business integrity with a particular focus on anti-corruption measures in and for the private sector in countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, as well as in selected other countries.

Countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia have introduced important anti-corruption reforms in recent years. However, corruption in the region remains high. This report identifies progress achieved as well as challenges which require further action by countries.

This meeting of the Anti-Corruption Network for Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ACN) will take place at the OECD on 12-14 September 2017.

A new study suggests that abandoned farmland is widespread in Europe and that not all land that has been abandoned is unsuitable for farming. Understanding how abandoned farmland is distributed may be important for making land management decisions – for instance, recultivation versus reversion to forest.

The factors enabling eco-innovation have been analysed across 19 European countries in a new study. Regulations and environmental subsidies were found to be more important factors in Eastern Europe than in wealthier Western European countries. External research and development (R&D) was also more relevant in Eastern Europe, demonstrating the need for specific technology transfers from other countries and competitors.

Researchers have developed a new approach for identifying regions that are most suitable for expanding ecosystem services. This could be used to help inform spatial planning decisions. By modelling ecosystem services’ opportunity costs in relation to agricultural revenue, the study provides a map of suitable areas of ecosystem service expansion in Eastern Europe.

A recent study has analysed research on implementing the Water Framework Directive (WFD) in Europe and identified a number of research gaps that could be filled. For example, some countries, such as Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, have not been well studied and more research on the experiences of such countries would build up knowledge on the implementation of the WFD across Europe.

National bird conservation policies implemented in Eastern Europe in the 1990s have substantially benefited bird populations across the region, a new study has shown. Compared with the period 1970-1990, the population trends of species protected by national legislation improved during 1990-2000, particularly for those species receiving focused attention. Across the 306 species studied, the average rate of decline was much lower after protection than before. This suggests that modern conservation policies in the region were already taking effect.

Eastern European Association of the Greens analyzed the most disturbing environmental problems of Eastern Europe in order to bring them to public notice, and be involved in "green" dialogue in Europe.

Many countries in Eastern Europe are taking drastic measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 -- in part because their health-care systems may not be up to the task.

31 October 2019

Trade between Central and Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa has increased significantly in the last decade and a half. There is a strong case to be made for greater economic re-engagement, especially in terms of investment, that has the potential to support inclusive growth in both regions.

Research Event

Polish people -- Genealogy.

Veniamin Gonikman, 56, who became a fugitive in 2005, was apprehended in Ukraine in January 2011.

Veniamin Gonikman, 56, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Ukraine, was sentenced today in federal court for his role in an international conspiracy to compel Eastern European women to work in exotic dance clubs in the Detroit metropolitan area. U.S. District Court Judge Victoria A. Roberts sentenced Gonikman to 36 months in prison followed by 3 years of supervised release. He is the ninth and final member of the charged conspiracy to be sentenced.

After 17 years of transition to market economies in central and eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), are people better off now than they were in 1989? Brookings Global recently hosted a presentation by Senior Fellow and European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD) Chief Economist, Erik Berglöf, on the 2007 Transition…