Special attention should be paid to categories of citizens in need of state assistance. A more effective mechanism for providing targeted social assistance, infant formula for children under two years of age, and control over the implementation of other payments and benefits should be established. In 2009, 32.3 thousand residents of the region received targeted support amounting to Br6.5 billion. Assistance to low-income families with children under two years of age increased by 27%. 10.7 thousand people became recipients of this assistance.

Schoolchildren from Vitebsk and Chashniki have become scholarship holders of the Foundation for the Support of Education and Science, founded by Nobel laureate Zhores Alferov, the director of Gymnasium No. 1 in Vitebsk, Valentina Shirokaya, told a BELTA correspondent. Winners of international conferences, prize-winners of republican subject Olympiads in physics and chemistry, Vitebsk residents Anton Putov, Lyubov Yudassina, and young resident of Chashniki Nikita Dubko received an invitation from the renowned physicist to participate in the solemn ceremony of awarding diplomas to the foundation's scholarship holders. The awarding of scholarships from the Alferov Foundation to Belarusian schoolchildren is a high assessment for both the students themselves and their teachers.

In the current five-year period, investment and innovation activities in the region will focus on reducing the import component of production, maximizing the use of the region's resource potential, and reducing imports in general. The program developed in the region aims to form an effective innovation economy and create fundamentally new industries that produce high-tech products with high added value. The program document is based on 19 subprograms covering the main areas of socio-economic development. Their implementation will allow by 2015 to ensure a twofold increase in gross regional product compared to the 2010 level, a 2.6-fold increase in exports of goods and services, and to achieve a positive foreign trade balance of $250 million in 2015. In addition, over five years, more than 3.8 million square meters of housing will be built, and more than 31 thousand jobs will be created.