This study looks at lessons to be drawn from the ten-year experience of the transition countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in the period 1991 to 2000. The World Bank’s World Development Report 1996: From Plan to Market focused on the transition process during the first half of this period. It recognized that while initial conditions are critical, decisive and sustained reforms are important for recovery of growth and should be accompanied by social policies designed to protect the most vulnerable groups until growth takes hold. It highlighted the need to create institutions in support of markets, and it emphasized that investing in people is a key to growth..