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A workshop organized by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to the United Nations brought together 30 representatives of the World Health Organization, UNDP, UNICEF, International organization for Migration and Roma NGO's. The meeting was held on January 30-31 and was moderated by Jan Jarab - a regional representative of the Office for Human Rights of UN for Europe. Bulgaria was represented by Dr. Stefan Panayotov, Mrs. Liliya Makaveeva and Mr. Deyan Kolev.

The aim of the meeting was to establish a Consultative group on Roma access to health care. It will assist the UN in implementing the project "Strengthening of the activities to achieve MDGs 4 and 5 in the context of the Decade of Roma inclusion and the National Strategies for integration of Roma". The components of this project will be implemented by WHO,UNDP,UNICEF and IOM during 2012 and 2013.  The project aims to assist governments in creating a capacity for monitoring of the "Health" part of the National Roma Strategies.

It envisages to published results of a study on the health status of the Roma living in EU-member countries and countries-candidates for EU; educational materials about the nature of the MDG's and their monitoring; in addition, materials on sexual and reproductive health will be published and monitoring of the "Health" part of the national strategies for integration in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Montenegro will be implemented.

The participants discussed the main activities and possible mechanisms for monitoring. They appealed for increased participation of Roma organizations in the project's implementation in all its phases. Special attention was also paid to the process of development and subsequent evaluation of the national strategies for Roma integration.

The participants from Bulgaria explained their disappointment that in the "Health" part of the Action Plan of the Roma Strategy none of the proposals submitted by the interdepartmental working group, preparing the Strategy were included.  This is a serious disrespect of the work of the participants in that working group and the reason is not the lack of political will, but poor coordination in the process of the document development. Roma organizations are already making steps in the engagement of the Ministry of Health in order this mistake to be fixed.

Deyan Kolev presented the experience of Amalipe in conducting a community monitoring of the health services on local level. He stressed that the monitoring on local level should find a place in the overall system monitoring and evaluation of the international policy. All the three Bulgarian representatives pointed out that the Centers for community development (irrespective of the function name) are one of the most successful practice existing to improve the status of Roma because they offer a holistic approach by supporting the modernization and the development of the community.