25 years of the EIA

Twenty-five years have passed since the first Estonian Human Development Report was published. In the preface to that report, which was published in 1995 with the support of the United Nations Development Program, the Prime Minister of the Republic Tiit Vähi wrote the following:

“It is inevitable that the issue of human development should be included on the agenda. The Estonian government seeks to link and balance economic development with the goals of human development and the task of preserving the environment: neither the sustainability of our people nor the natural environment should be sacrificed in the course of economic development”.

At the request of the Estonian Cooperation Assembly, in 2020, Marju Lauristin has completed a report called Taasiseseisvunud Eesti kolm aastakümmet inimarengu luubi all. Ülevaade Eesti inimarengu aruannete sisust 1995–2020 (Three Decades of Re-Independent Estonia of Human Development Under the Microscope. A Survey the Contents of the Estonian Human Development Reports 1995-2020).

This is an exhaustive analytical survey of the Human Development Reports, published in Estonia over the last 25 years and describes the evolution of a poor transitional society into a country with one of the world’s highest levels of human development. A unique chronicle, a sort of recent history of Estonia that provides a picture of the societal changes in over 25 years and reveals the complex choices – the ignoble problems that social scientists have consistently sought to understand.

To date, 18 volumes have been published, with contributions from 282 scientists. The Estonian Human Development Report has been published by the Estonian Cooperation Assembly since 2006. Prior to that, it was published by the Tallinn Pedagogical University.

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