The project promotes a gradual shift from social assistance to pro-active social support with welfare-to-work elements. Situation analysis:
Roma in Southeast Europe face extraordinary vulnerability and human security risks. They are overrepresented among the most vulnerable groups (those living in extreme poverty, without secure housing and educational opportunities).The capacity of central and local governments and civil society organizations to ameliorate these disadvantages is generally weak. To compound the problem, displaced populations (internally displaced persons and refugees) often face similar levels of vulnerability. As the recently published UNDP report At Risk: Roma and the Displaced in Southeast Europe argues, the problems these two groups face should be addressed through area-based development that is group-sensitive ¬– an approach that emphasizes integration and inclusion.
Proposed programme:
The project is part of a broader UNDP initiative, targeting the region’s most vulnerable populations (including refugees and internally displaced persons). It will promote a gradual shift in the policy and programmatic focus towards Roma (and potentially – displaced populations), from social assistance to pro-active social support with welfare-to-work elements. In particular, the project will be assisting central government agencies in their efforts to implement the national action plans for Roma inclusion, adopted within the ‘Decade of Roma Inclusion’ (initiative supported by UNDP).
Anticipated results:
The project is supporting institutional development and policy formulation at the national level. It is expected to improve the infrastructure for social assistance through the expansion and redefinition of existing support frameworks. Although targeting explicitly Roma, given the capacity development nature of the project, all vulnerable groups will benefit from reformed employment promotion and social support systems.
Current status:
The implementation of the project in Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo (funded by SIDA) has started in January 2007. The project teams have been established and the implementation of individual activities is carried out. Although the components in Montenegro and Kosovo were originally envisaged only for 2007 and 2008, due to a later start with the activities implementation the activities in these components will be extended also into 2009 (without additional funding required).
At the same time, the project seeks for funding for its extension to other countries of the region, namely Croatia and Macedonia. The project succeeded to mobilize funding for the parts of the regional component that address monitoring and evaluation of the Decade of Roma Inclusion – the German Friedrich Ebert Stiftung foundation – which is committed to fund the development and implementation of a methodology for monitoring the implementation of the Decade of Roma Inclusion in selected member countries (Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria and possibly also Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina).
Roles: Country offices are implementing their respective components with the funds going into their delivery, although the whole project is in Atlas under BRC. BRC is coordinating the whole project (2.7 million EUR) and implementing its regional component (EUR 450K in three years out of the total project value). BRC is also responsible for quality assurance in the project. |
