100 of the Most Pressing Issues in the Republic of Moldova in 2007
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100 of the most pressing issues in the Republic of Moldova in 2007 Publication appeared with the financial support of Friedrich Ebert Foundation Chişinău 2007 CZU 327(036) I49 This publication appeared with the financial support of Friedrich Ebert Foundation. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the financing institution. Coordinator: Ghenadie Mocanu Authors: Ion Marandici Dumitru Lazur Ion Guzun Nadejda Caprar Diana Cheianu-Andrei Olesea Cruc Alexandru Leşanu Descrierea CIP a Camerei Naţionale a Cărţii Ghenadie Mocanu 100 of the most pressing issues in the Republic of Moldova in 2007 – Ch. : Bons Offices, 2007. – 239 p. ISBN 978-9975-80-021-1 200 ex. 327(036) Makeup: Sorin Ivasişin Cover by: Eugen Novac © The Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDSI) “Viitorul” MD-2005, Chişinău, 10/14, Iacob Hancu Street The Republic of Moldova Tel.: 21 09 32, tel./fax: 22 18 44 e-mail: [email protected], www.viitorul.org ISBN 978-9975-80-021-1 Preface A society without problems would mean a perfect society. Unfortunately, such a society can only be found in utopia. In our daily life, the problems are a constituent part of our activity. More or less grave, they challenge us and stimulate our daily activities, contribute to stress stimulation, make us think about the necessary solutions that in some cases are completely inappropriate. For a country, the existence of certain problems constitutes the motive power that contributes to the stimulation of durable development. Although they imply a certain degree of stress and call for attention, the problems trigger the political life and stimulate the social-economic processes. However, the problems imply expenses, especially when the proposed solutions do not correspond to the essence and causes of the problems. Most of the times the proposed solutions are not efficient. Even though it may seem that, it is insufficient just to identify and describe the issues that have dominated the public agenda in 2007, the correct identification of the essence of the problem gives us 60 % of the answer towards its solution. The peculiarity of 2007 was the fact that it was the last year of the implementation of the EU Action Plan by the Republic of Moldova facing a severe drought. In 2006, the authorities of the Republic of Moldova had put forth the efforts to convince the European officials and the western partners of the possibilities of the country to implement the stipulations of the Action Plan RM-EU, the efforts have been materialized by the creating and sending reports regarding the implementation of the RM-EU AP. In 2007, the Moldovan authorities are facing the situation when they have to prove to the citizens and to themselves that the implementation of the Action Plan RM-EU did not represent just efforts but also clear results in bringing Moldova closer to EU. Or the implementation of this very document represented a capacity and availability test of the Republic of Moldova to approach the European Union. One hundred issues is a too less number for a country as the Republic of Moldova that has been going through a deep transition period for the last 16 years. Although our aim was to identify just the most pressing issues that were on the top of public agenda in 2007. The research team has analyzed the main public debates, actions and the messages intended for the open society via the mass media in 2007 in order to comprehend how these debates keep up with the aimed objectives of the political class of the Republic of Moldova. This study is a useful tool for the community of political decision-makers, governmental officials, leaders of the civil society and representatives of printed and electronic mass media both from the Republic of Moldova and outside the country. The value of this study is consolidated through its easy structure, techniques of identification and validation of certain problems reflected in the media, representing thus an effort of designing a public agenda that comprises the majority of issues of interest for the development of the Republic of Moldova. This smart product offers comparative and analytical elements for the adoption of some superior techniques of evaluation of some decisions that involve important costs for our society. Meanwhile, the intention of the authors of this study is to encourage critical thinking and comparative approach regarding drafting of efficient and effective public policies as well as qualitative growth of the level of public debates on these issues of interest. The research team was formed of seven experts and one coordinator. The study was coordinated by Ghenadie Mocanu and the research team was formed from Ion Marandici, Dumitru Lazur, Ion Guzun (the political sphere), Nadejda Caprar (the economic sphere), Diana Cheianu- Andrei, Olesea Cruc (the social sphere) and Alexandru Leşanu (International relations) The authors would like to express their sincerest gratitude to Friedrich Ebert Foundation for the given support in the elaboration of this research as well as for the encouragement offered throughout the entire duration of this comprehensive study. 3 Research methodology The starting point in our research was the analysis of the local press throughout 2007 and collecting the very sensitive issues (VSI) that came to the public attention in the given period. The reference point of selecting the media for our analysis was based on the role of the press as an instrument in creating and providing subjects for the general public agenda (political, administrative, economic, social, etc.), and at the same time monitoring the key topics with the reference to specific reactions from the society. The perusal of the press from the Republic of Moldova determined us to observe the existence of certain special interest subjects from the official and unofficial agenda of the Moldovan authorities that are repeated with a certain frequency which resound for the society. In the first phase, we decided to perform a content analysis of the press in order to identify a number of about 100 subjects of maximum sensitivity. The problems were identified according to the following criteria: the frequency of appearance, the impact, the dynamics and the escalation degree of the problem. Priority has been given to the materials from the press that have enrolled to certain currents of opinion avoiding the sensational news that have the aim to distract the public attention from important subjects. Subsequently, we have applied the qualitative analysis of the identified problems using as a reference point an analysis matrix with certain qualitative indicators: ■ Subject - offers a general overview of the problem; ■ Problem Description – identifies occurrence areas, sources and reasons that maintain the problems actual; ■ Target groups – includes persons and social groups affected or privileged by the problems’ existence; ■ Impact – calculates the costs, difficulties, threats and effects of the problem over the environment and social structures; ■ Dynamics – identifies problems’ tendencies and critical moments, its perpetuation for a longer period of time which transforms it in a dominant tendency over public, ■ economic and social life; ■ Factors – identifies institutions, groups and actors involved in social intercommunications pertaining to the problem, or are confronting with its acute aspects and their possible behaviour. ■ Anticipations – describes the probable evolutions in the nearest future; ■ Questions – intercepts the essence of the problem and its impact in the past as well as in the future. In order to have this media research organized and to have the description of the identified problems logically arranged, we have divided the identified problems in the framework of four big impact groups: political, economic, social, and external. Respectively, in order to be easier identified, the problems from each group have received a capital letter in front of the group followed by the number of the problem from the group (e.g. Political – P1, P2, …) the groups have been named as follows: Political - P, Economic – E, Social – S, External – Ex. Along with the frequency of the appearance of the problems in the media, we have done an external evaluation of the problems. In this regard, ten experts representing different fields of activity from the four abovementioned have graded the problems from 1 to 7 (where one is the minimum value and seven is the maximum value) according to three indicators: ■ Impact - the potential of the gravity of the problem for the democratic stability and the increasing development of the Republic of Moldova. ■ Dynamics – the capacity to modify, transform or aggravate a problem. To what extent is the given problem static or dynamic? ■ Escalation degree – to what degree is the given problem close to turn into a crisis and a paralysis of the domain that it represents? 4 The average of the three indicators has allowed us to find the intensity of the problems: Impact + Dynamics + Escalation Degree In = 3 The coefficient of every indicator (Impact, Dynamics, Escalation Degree) represents the average of the answers of the experts for each problem. These indicators can be visualized and evaluated at the beginning of the description of the problems from the four domains. Despite the subjectivity of the external assessment of the problems since it represents the perception of just one group of experts, it gives us some reference for the distinction of the most pressing subjects from the public agenda in 2007. It should be mentioned that starting from the principle that every identified problem is as pressing and bears the same share of concern from the political decision makers and the whole society; we have not prioritized the problems. The sequence in which the problems have been described in this research represents the sequence of identification of the problems into the four groups by the experts throughout the study.