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The workshop served as a follow-up to the meeting in November 2011, which brought together NGOs and partner institutions carrying out advocacy projects to influence the EU Framework process on developing National Roma Integration Strategies. The meeting aimed to provide an opportunity to reflect jointly on the experiences, progress and lessons learned in terms of research and evidence-based advocacy related to NRIS processes. Through small group and plenary discussions, participants addressed a number of questions related to process, outcomes and future plans concerning monitoring, reporting and advocacy related to National Roma Integration Strategies.

The organizers stressed that the meeting was not meant to be a reporting session on the projects, nor an expert meeting on content of the strategies. Rather, the meeting aimed to be a space and process for self-reflection and learning both for Roma Initiatives and participating NGOs and partners on how to improve and strengthen advocacy efforts concerning national Roma integration strategies in the future.

In the first session participants presented some of the main achievements of their projects. On behalf of Center Amalipe Momchil Baev presented the main three points that the organization has achieved on advocating the National Roma Integration Strategy:

-         The National Roma Integration Strategy was approved by the Parliament: this would not be done without the project implementation. The request for approving the Strategy via Decision of the Parliament was raised for first time during the first conference organized by the project consortium in Sliven (http://www.amalipe.com/index.php?nav=news&id=935&lang=1) and repeated during the other events organized by the consortium. Initially it met resistence from the government representatives but finally was approved and BG Roma Strategy was the only one approved through decision of the Parliament - see

-         Interministerial working group for suport of Roma integration through EU funds was established: this also would not be done without the project implementation. The request for establishing such a structure was raised after the conferences organized by the project consortium in October as a mean to strengthen the administrative infrastructure for implementing the Roma integration policy as well as for binding EU funds absorbtion in the next planning period with Roma integration.
The group was established at high political level. It is chaired by Minister on EU funds Donchev; deputy ministers who are chairs of Human Resources Development OP, Regional Development OP and Rural Areas Development Program took part in the group as well as representaives of Roma civil society. The Roma NGO representatives were elected after special procedure. 4 out of 6 of them are from our project consortium: Deyan Kolev, Stela Kostova, Spaska Mihajlova, Gancho Iliev. The others are are our good partners - Roumian Sechkov and Stefan Panayotov.

-         The name of the Strategy was formulated as National Roma Integration Strategy: the initial suggestion from the government was to be Strategy for Integration of Vulnerable Ethnic Minorities and Persons in Disadvantaged Position. The project consortium became the main protagonist for the name 'National Roma integration strategy" that was one of our main claims during the conferences in October. The reason was to keep the focus on Roma and thus to have targeted approach. The strategy does not exclude the other vulnerable minorities following the principle "Explicit but not exclusive targeting".

As a conclusion Zeljko Jovanovic - a director of the Open Society Roma Initiatives Program stated that during the next level of advocacy activities on the NRIS some new innovative methods should be developed to replace the conventional ones that might not be working with the desired results so far. There are NGOs that have not achieved as much as expected by using traditional methods of advocacy.