Status, trends and problems of regional governance in the Republic of Belarus

Belarus is a unitary state with a territory in
207.6 thousand square kilometers, divided administratively into 6 regions (Brest, Vitebsk, Gomel, Grodno, Minsk and Mogilev). The regions, in turn, include 118 districts (Table 4).

Table 4 Resource requirements by component

Administrative divisions
Of the Republic of Belarus (2001)

Thus, two levels of intermediate regions have been preserved in Belarus. There are 106 cities and the same number of urban-type settlements in the country, 1456 village councils. A number of large cities are divided into urban areas (in Minsk there are 9 of them, and in Brest and Grodno there are 2 each). On average, each village council unites 16 or more villages and other rural settlements.

The existing administrative division of Belarus was formed by the beginning of the 1960s. It should be noted that since 1944, for almost ten post-war years, the republic has been divided into
12 regions, which in their territory, population and districts resembled the enlarged districts of the 20s. In January 1954, five regions (Baranovichi, Bobruisk, Pinsk, Polesie and Polotsk) were liquidated, and in early 1960 molodechno region was abolished, due to which the five remaining regions were enlarged.

In the course of a major reform of the administrative-territorial division of Belarus in the 50-60s, there was first an enlargement of the districts with a decrease in their number to 77, and then their number was brought to 117 by 1966. The modern administrative-territorial division of Belarus was formed in 1989, when a new one was formed in the Mogilev region.
118th district (Dribinsky, created taking into account the need to minimize the consequences at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant). Despite the absence of fundamental changes in the administrative-territorial division of our country for a third of a century (which indicates its optimality), there are changes in the structure of the urban and rural population, the number of cities, etc. So, if in 1959 there were only four cities in Belarus with a population of 100 thousand or more inhabitants, now there are already 15 such cities (Minsk, Gomel, Mogilev, Vitebsk, Grodno, Brest, Bobruisk, Baranovichi, Borisov, Pinsk, Orsha, Mozyr, Novopolotsk, Soligorsk and Lida). They are home to 46.3% of the total population of Belarus or 2/3 of the urban population.

The Republic of Belarus is a modern, European, industrially developed country, although industrial production is located throughout the country quite unevenly. Nevertheless, the sectoral structure and territorial distribution of industrial production in Belarus are slowly but purposefully changing. If in the early 1990s about a quarter of the total industrial production of Belarus was concentrated in Minsk, and the share of the capital in this indicator was the highest in the republic, then by 2000 the share of Minsk in terms of industrial production fell to 18.8%. Leadership in this indicator passed to the two eastern regions of the republic – Gomel and Vitebsk regions, in each of which it was possible to concentrate about 21% of the total republican volume of products, works and services of an industrial nature (Table 5).

There are noticeable differences in the spatial organization of individual industries (Table 6). Thus, in 2000, more than 54% of the total volume of machine-building and metalworking production in Belarus was concentrated in Minsk. A high level of territorial concentration of production is typical for some  other sectors of the Belarusian industry – electric power, metallurgical and fuel industries. From 42 to 99% of the republican production of these industries is concentrated in one or two eastern regions of Belarus – in several large and medium-sized industrial centers of these regions: in Novopolotsk, Polotsk, Mozyr, Zhlobin and some other cities.

Table 5 Resource requirements by component

Distribution of industrial production by regions of the Republic of Belarus in 2000, in %

Source: Fateev V.S. Regional Policy: Theory and Practice. – Mn.: EGU, 2004. p. 325.

Table 6 Resource requirements by component

Sectoral structure of industrial production of Belarus and its regions in 2000,%

Source: Fateev V. S. Regional Policy: Theory and Practice. – Mn.: EGU, 2004.  P. 326.

The nature of the territorial organization of individual industries determines the industrial specialization of each of the regions of the republic. For example, in Minsk, a pronounced branch of industrial specialization is mechanical engineering and metalworking, in the Vitebsk and Gomel regions – the fuel industry, brest and Grodno regions – the food industry. Although it should be noted that in other industries, production is distributed throughout the country more or less evenly.

Regional peculiarities are observed in the development of other sectors of the Belarusian economy. The western regions of Belarus (Grodno and Brest), having a relatively small share in the industrial production of the republic, demonstrate a higher level of agricultural development (Table 7).

Since the Republic of Belarus did not follow the path of landslide privatization and sweeping liberal-market reforms, as it happened in a number of countries that followed the recipes of the Washington consensus, the consequences of the transformation crisis in our country were not so destructive. Currently, many regions of Belarus have managed to reach the pre-crisis level of development, and the unemployment rate was significantly lower than in other countries in transition to the market (1.5–3.0% in various regions in early 2002). In addition, in our country there is no unacceptably high regional differentiation of incomes of the population (in 2000 the average family income in Minsk was 1.2 times greater than in small towns and 1.3 times higher than in rural areas).

Table 7 Resource requirements by component

Some performance indicators of agricultural regions of Belarus (average values for 1995–1999)

Characterizing the environmental potential of the Republic of Belarus, it is important to note that the high industrial potential of the country and its regions causes a complex, and sometimes unfavorable state of the main elements of the natural environment: atmospheric air, land and water. Thus, if about 375 thousand tons of harmful substances are emitted from stationary sources into the atmosphere as a whole, of which up to 88% have a liquid and gaseous form, then more than 45% of the total emissions fall on the industrially developed regions of Belarus – Vitebsk (25%) and Gomel (21%) regions. In addition, given that in Belarus 74% of the total emissions into the atmosphere fall on motor vehicles, the largest volume of pollutants enters the air basin from the territory of Minsk.

The way the problem of rational use and protection of land resources is solved in Belarus cannot be considered satisfactory either. If in 1980 the area of agricultural land was 9727.9 thousand hectares, then by 2000 it decreased to 9281.5 thousand hectares. As a positive trend, it is worth noting the growth of the area occupied by forests. From 1985 to 2000, the forest cover of Belarus (the ratio of the forested area to the entire territory of the country) increased from 33.9 to 36%.

The consumption of water resources in Belarus is carried out mainly by housing and communal services (40% of total water consumption), industry (31%) and agriculture (27%). On a per capita basis, the average consumption of drinking water in the republic is 200-210 l / day, which is higher than in most other European countries. The largest specific water consumption for household and drinking needs took place in the Mogilev and Gomel regions, as well as in Grodno, Brest, Bobruisk and Mogilev.

About 1200 million cubic meters of wastewater are discharged into natural water bodies today, including 26 million cubic meters of polluted water. 59% of the total volume of wastewater is generated in the sphere of housing and communal services, 27% – in industry, 14% – in agriculture. The most powerful local source of chemical load on river systems remains
Minsk, in the industrial and economic complex of which more effluents are generated than in all major cities combined or in any of the regions of Belarus.

The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant caused significant damage to the environmental potential of Belarus. It is known that about 70% of all radionuclides emitted as a result of this accident settled on the territory of our country. So, if in Ukraine about 28.5 thousand square kilometers (4.72% of the country’s territory) are contaminated with cesium-137, and in Russia – 35.2 thousand square kilometers (0.21%), then in Belarus the consequences of the Disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant are more extensive – 43.5 thousand square kilometers are contaminated here, which is 21% of the entire territory of the country (mainly the south-eastern regions). According to updated data, the socio-economic damage caused and projected until 2015 is 235 billion USD.

Analyzing the experience of state management of regional development of the Republic of Belarus, it should be noted that a number of legislative acts regulating relations in the field of protection, use and reproduction of natural resources, improvement of mechanisms of local self-government, ensuring harmonious regional development have been adopted and put into effect in our country. In 2000, the Main Directions of Socio-Economic Development of the Republic of Belarus for the Period up to 2010 were approved, in which regional economic policy is defined as an integral part of the state macroeconomic policy aimed at forming territorial proportions and creating economic and social structures of the region’s economy, as well as state assistance to the development of problem regions that find themselves in relatively unfavorable conditions. All this testifies to the fact that in the Republic of Belarus the country’s leadership is aware of the importance and relevance of regional problems and is taking very energetic and adequate measures to solve them.