In the late 1980s and early 1990s, with funding from the National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Agency for International Development, CIPE initiated the Legal and Regulatory Reform in Hungary (LRRH) project with six Hungarian partner organizations. Initially, the reform effort concentrated on the financial sector, the informal sector, the real estate market, privatization, tax policies, local government's role in private sector development, and the impact of public opinion on reform. The major objectives of the LRRH project included:

• Promoting a reform program based on sound research and Hungary's principal economic policy requirements;
• Developing advocacy skills of and encouraging cooperation among independent business organizations and public policy groups in order to promote legal and regulatory reforms effectively; and
• Accelerating the pace of reforms through a coordinated, locally led advocacy effort.

CIPE’s Budapest office brought together disparate analysts and policymakers regularly and developed and reinforced advocacy techniques forming a solid pro-reform policy community. In 1994, CIPE and its Hungarian partners produced a groundbreaking report, Crossed Paths: Straightening the Road to Private Sector Growth. The report served as a "road map" for Hungary's leading decision-makers in the public and private sectors looking to achieve meaningful economic reform. Today, six years after the report was issued, nearly two-thirds of the report's 41 recommendations have been adopted by the Government of Hungary. One of the success stories is the enactment and implementation of pension reform laws. Equally important, all of the reforms have proved to be successful and sustainable over time.

Source: Marer and Gelenyi (1999). For the full text of the evaluation, see: www.cipe.org/programs/evaluations/hungary/