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Conference on ‘Result-oriented Management: Effective Monitoring and Evaluation of the National Strategy of the Republic of Bulgaria on Integration of the Roma Minority’ brought together representatives of the Bulgarian government, the World Bank, the European Commission and Roma NGO’s. The meeting was held in Sofia, on January 23-24^th and it was organized by the National Council for Cooperation on Ethnic and Integration Issues. Center Amalipe was represented by Deyan Kolev.

 ‘Such discussions provide room for introducing the good models and reaffirming the truth that Bulgarian Roma are irrevocable part of the economic recovery and development of the country’ said in his opening speech the Deputy Prime Minister Mr. Tsvetanov. He also pointed out that the National Strategy on Roma Integration is a product of the common efforts of institutions and Roma NGO and that it is due to persistence of all the organizations that the Strategy is submitted for approval to the Bulgarian Parliament. The document has already been approved unanimously in 4 parliamentary committees; it is pending for consideration in 3 other committees which will be followed by vote at a plenary session. 

The Vice President of the World Bank for Europe and Central Asia Mr. Phillip Le Wairua said that the investment in the education and social inclusion of Roma is a reasonable economy considering that 23 % of the people who join labor market are Roma.  ‘Today we make a very important step: the transition from strategy elaboration towards implementation and measurement of results. The World Bank can offer its expertise in monitoring and evaluation and we are glad that such a nice alliance of committed partners is at our disposal – government, UNDP, the European Commission. In my opinion, with joint efforts we can all turn the strategy into real, concrete, measurable results’, said the World Bank Vice President.

The Head of DG ‘Employment’ of the European Commission for Bulgaria and Romania, Mr. Philippe Hatt assured that the Commission will lay the implementation of the National Strategy on Roma Integration under close scrutiny. ‘We sincerely hope that it does not turn to just another piece of paper’ and that it will bring concrete actions and also be correlated with the utilization of EU funds. The implementation will be subject to close monitoring on the part of the Commission’, said Mr. Hatt.

 During the conference, the experience of various international organizations and institutions was presented in terms of monitoring of Roma integration. Presentations have been made by Mr. Andrey Ivanov (UNDP), Joost De Laat (World Bank), Bartek Lesser (European Commission), Adam Kullman (Open Society Institute) and others.

In his speech, Deyan Kolev recommended that such forums should also envisage presentations of Roma organizations. ‘I hope that for Roma with the Roma principle has not been replaced by for Roma without the Roma added he jokingly.  In the course of its approval some key elements from the National Strategy on Roma Integration about which the Roma organizations laid demands have been skipped and this seriously affected the quality of the document, stressed Kolev.  To be more specific, he gave an example with the missing Annex ‘Programs for Implementation of NSRI’ which contains the specific programs envisaged for the coming years. ‘The Annex has been proposed and introduced to the Council of Ministers, received approval from many ministries but it is not available in the final version of the documents adopted by the government. We hope that this is an administrative error subject to correction’, stated Kolev.

 Stela Kostova, Vice President of the National Council for Cooperation on Ethnic and Integration Issues from the civil society quota, stressed out that much of the funds envisaged for the implementation of the approved Activity Plan have been cut down which makes their implementation a bit dubious. Dr. StefanPanayotovandMr. GanchoIlievexpressedtheir disappointment by the fact that in terms of Healthcare priority within the Activity Plan, there is no trace of the envisaged in the preliminary discussions of the interdepartmental working group. ‘The Plan reiterates the agreements reached by the Council of Ministers in July 2011 and it seems, in the long run, that our efforts have been in vain. Dr. Panayotovinsisted on immediate alterations in this respect. Statements have been made from manyotherNGO representatives as well.   

Deputy Prime Minister Tstvetanov and representatives of Roma NGO’s within an informal meeting made discussions on what can be done as corrective measures. Mr. Tsvetanov assured that the Annex ‘Programs for Implementation of NSRI’ will be submitted for discussion again at the Council of Ministers within the next two weeks and he expressed his strong support. He agreed also with the proposal that the Annual Report on the implementation of the National Strategy for Roma Integration is due for submission not only to the Council of Ministers  (as provided in this text) but to the National Assembly as well. The necessary regulatory and legislative changes to ensure strong community commitment with the implementation of the document have been also discussed.

Presentations from the conference find be found at:

http://nccedi.government.bg/page.php?category=73&id=1647