Project: Inclusion of Roma Women and Men in Security Sector

09Feb2015

Office for Human and Minority Rights of the Government of the Republic of Serbia and the Standing Conference of Roma civil associations (SKRUG) - League Roma, in cooperation with the Foundation for an Open Society Belgrade, organized a conference ‘Towards a new strategy for improving the status of Roma’ with the aim of identifying common approach to the strategy development.

The "Baseline Study for the development of a new Strategy for Roma Inclusion harmonized with the Europe 2020 Strategy'” was presented at the conference revealing reasons goals behind the development of a new strategic document. The strategy for improving the status of Roma in the Republic of Serbia and the accompanying Action Plan for the implementation of this strategy will be prepared in the course of this year.

Suzana Paunovic, director of the Office for Human and Minority Rights recalled that by joining the Decade of Roma and adopting a national strategic framework for improving the situation of the Roma community in 2005 the Republic of Serbia clearly opted for economic and social inclusion of Roma.

The foundations for the new Strategy for Roma Inclusion 2016 - 2026 were developed in a broad consultation process with local self-governments in Serbia, civil society organizations, government institutions, and independent bodies, which was organized in order to gain insight into all aspects of the implementation of policies that can contribute to improving the situation of Roma in Serbia and develop the ground rules that can help make quality strategic document. Public Policy Research Centre, as a civil society organization which through its research work deals with the problems of Roma in Serbia, also took an active part in this process.

List of speakers at the Conference included, among others: Nenad Ivanisevic, President of the Council for the Advancement of Roma Inclusion Decade, Rajko Djuric, Deputy Director of the Office for Human and Minority Rights, Vitormir  Mihajlovic, President of the National Council of the Roma National Minority, Osman Balic, Chairman of the Standing Conference of Roma Citizens' Associations - League Roma, and Jadranka Jelincic,  Executive Director of the Open Society Foundation.