The Transition in Central and Eastern Europe: The Experience of Two Resident Representatives

This essay reflects the thoughts and experience of two staff members. Mark Allen has been a resident representative in both Poland (1990-93) and Hungary (1996-1998), two countries that have moved well along the road of transformation. Rick Haas was the resident representative in Belarus (1996-98), a country where much remains to be done. In some respects they had similar experiences, in others very dissimilar ones. In what follows they describe the circumstances they found themselves in, the advice they gave, the lessons they learned, and they recount some of their experiences as resident representatives.