26Nov2015

Cooperation between civil society organizations and local self governments in implementation of Roma inclusion policies – experiences and practices

OSCE Mission to Serbia, within the project “We are here together – European support for Roma inclusion” organized the conference “Cooperation between civil society organizations and local self governments in implementation of Roma inclusion policies – experiences and practices” on November 26^th in Belgrade.

Suzana Paunovic stressed that the Office for human and minority rights has taken the coordination of competent ministries, local self governments, civil society organizations and underlined support of project team OSCE Mission and donor the Delegation of European Union in Republic of Serbia. Project consists of six components: access to rights, introduction of joint mobile teams, empowerment of civil society organizations, introduction of drop-out prevention programme in schools, improving housing conditions and sustainable employment opportunities.

Within the empowerment of civil society organizations component, it has been envisaged support and capacitating of civil society organizations aimed to ensure active participation in civic initiatives. Also, it has been carried out the process of mapping of organizations in 20 pilot municipalities and cities, as well as the research on the needs of organizations. Until now 30 civil society organizations and 4 networks went through three modules of capacitating: participation of citizens in drafting, implementation and monitoring of Local action plans for Roma people, publicly advocating, lobbying and networking.

Important segment in drafting of National Strategy for social inclusion of Roma men and women is involvement of civil society in process of public hearings aimed to assure the comprehensive and transparent approach. The general goal of strategy is enhancement of socio-economic position of Roma population in Serbia, and specific goals refer on five priority areas: housing, education, employment, health and social protection. The Vice Prime Minister, Zorana Mihajlovic is authorized for coordination of Roma inclusion in Serbia, Office for human and minority rights and Social inclusion and poverty reduction Unit are competent bodies for reporting on implementation of Strategy and accompanied Action plan, and Roma coordinators and mobile teams for monitoring of realization of local policies for Roma people.

On the conference, discussion is launched on activities of Office for cooperation with civil society organizations, the outcomes of good models of cooperation between CSOs and local self governments focused on Roma integration in City of Kragujevac and Bela Palanka, as well as the results of MICS research conducted by UNICEF.

Marija Stankovic, Junior coordinator in Public Policy Research Centre has attended the conference.

Photo: Office for human and minority rights