Ukrainian Community Press Releases
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Ukrainian Community Press Releases |
May 14, 1999
Washington, DC
Carnegie Corporation of New York Awards $500,000 for Economics Education in Ukraine
Washington, D.C. — The Carnegie Corporation of New York announced a $500,000 grant to the Eurasia Foundation to support a leading economics education program in Ukraine. The grant supports the Economics Education and Research Consortium (EERC) and its M.A. Program in Economics at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. The grant will bolster efforts to train a new generation of economists to take leadership positions in Ukraine’s public and private sectors and falls directly within Carnegie’s goals for promoting innovative educational initiatives of global relevance.
“Support from the Carnegie Corporation fulfills two important objectives,” said Charles William Maynes, President of the Eurasia Foundation. “On a practical level, it helps us assure the viability of a significant reform program in facilitating Ukraine’s transition to a free market economy. And, as importantly, it brings a moral boost to Ukraine’s current process of educational reform.”
Addressing Ukraine’s pressing need for market-oriented economics education, the EERC has established the country’s first international-caliber Master’s program in economics, in collaboration with the University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. The two-year curriculum offers English-language coursework similar to that available in Master’s programs in Western Europe or North America. Currently there are some 90 students enrolled in the program. Through the EERC’s government internship, job placement, and doctoral education programs, graduates will go on to work effectively as economists in policy-making positions in Ukraine or to pursue further studies abroad.
A longer-term aim of the EERC is to create a local center for economics excellence in Ukraine, enabling graduates to further the economics profession in Ukraine through teaching and research. The ultimate goal of the program is to leave behind a progressive institution that plays a vital role in developing a strong in-country economics profession and in maintaining a healthy domestic economic policy-making process.
“Witnessing the rebirth of modern economics in Ukraine can be an inspiring experience,” said Michael Blackman, the Eurasia Foundation’s Ukraine Program Director, based in Kyiv. “The University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’s first-ever Master’s graduation ceremony last June was a case in point. Having the Carnegie Corporation’s trust in the work of the Eurasia Foundation is a matter of great pride for my colleagues and me.”
With assistance from the EERC, a number of the University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’s first crop of economics graduates last year have been placed in Ukrainian government ministries and agencies as interns; others have obtained public policy jobs or been placed in Ph.D. programs; still others are working in Ukrainian universities, on economic development projects, or in the private sector. An important objective of the EERC is to attract back young Ukrainian economists currently receiving Ph.D. training abroad to pursue research in Kyiv, taking advantage of the significant faculty, library, and Internet resources available through the EERC community.
The EERC, supported by a public-private funding partnership, is an initiative launched and administered by the Eurasia Foundation since 1995. Jointly developed by the Foundation, the World Bank, the Open Society Institutes, the Ford Foundation, and other donors, the EERC represents an effort to coordinate international assistance in economics capacity-building in Ukraine and Russia. Led by a consortium of donors, the EERC is an important model for public-private partnerships. Included in the consortium are the Carnegie Corporation; the Citigroup Foundation; the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Open Society Institute; the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Pew Charitable Trusts; the Starr Foundation; the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the World Bank; and the Eurasia Foundation. The ratio of private to public funds is over 6:1.
The Eurasia Foundation, created by the U.S. government in 1993 and currently funded by a mix of private and public donors, is a nonprofit, privately managed organization dedicated to grassroots reform throughout the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union. Through programs that foster individual empowerment and civic initiative, the Foundation awards grants for economic and legal reform, training, educational advancement, independent media creation, and increased citizen responsiveness among local government and the nongovernmental sector. Many of these programs, like the EERC, are administered by the Eurasia Foundation itself. The Foundation also provides low-interest loans to small businesses in Ukraine and Armenia, boosting economic development throughout these countries.
CONTACT:
Ellen Kerszencwejg, 202/234-7370
Sona Hamalian, 818/242-5233
Yarema Bachynsky
yb@eurasia.kiev.ua
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