Embassy Events 2004USAID Celebrates Success of 'Partners for Financial Stability' Program4 March 2004 |
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The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) hosted a one-day seminar in Warsaw on March 4 to celebrate the successful economic transformation of eight Central European countries from centrally planned economies to EU membership in fifteen years. All eight (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) are beneficiaries of USAID's Partners for Financial Stability Program, which has offered more than $6 million in more than 100 separate programs of technical assistance in the financial sector since 1999. The theme of the conference was "celebrating success and moving forward," which highlighted the progress these eight countries have made and developed lessons learned from their transition, which could be applied to other countries undergoing a similar transition. During the conference, five panels examined specific aspects of this transition, including financial sector regulations, regional markets developments, pension and insurance issues, international accounting standards and corporate governance. In 1990, USAID opened an office in Warsaw under the Support for East European Democracy (SEED) Act to support the double transition from a centrally planned economy to a private-sector led competitive economy and from a society ruled by a single party political structure to a vibrant participatory democracy. Between 1990 and 1999, when USAID closed its office in Poland, USAID supported more than 400 programs with close to one billion dollars in assistance. Recognizing the enormous success Poland had in meeting its original transition goals, USAID closed its office in Poland in the middle of 1999. However, that was not the end of US assistance for Poland. USAID designed the Partners for Financial Stability (PFS) program in the middle of 1999 to help Poland and seven other Central and Eastern European countries complete the reforms necessary to have a sound, private well-functioning financial sector. For more information about USAID activities in Poland, please see: http://www.usaid.gov/pl For more information about PFS implementing partners, please see: http://www.ewmi.hu/activities_pfs.html and http://www.fsvc.org |
 The USAID conference included representatives from eight Central European countries. |  Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Cameron Munter welcomed the participants. |  Kent Hill, USAID Assistant Administrator for Europe and Eurasia |  Ken Lanza, USAID Office Director, Office of Economic Growth, Bureau for Europe and Eurasia |
