News

Workshop organized by the Secretariat of NCCEII and the "Open Society Institute" - Sofia, was held on December 19 2012 at the "Rodina" hotel, Sofia. The meeting focused on the development of local action plans in line with the National Strategy of the Republic of Bulgaria for Roma Integration 2012-2020.

The meeting was attended by members of the regional operational teams and representatives of communities that are directly involved in the regional planning process to develop regional strategies for Roma integration 2012-2020 and action plans of municipalities 2012 - 2014.

Mrs. Rosica Ivanova - NCCEII Secretary, stressed that the purpose of the meeting is to support and assist methodically the local and regional teams in the process of regional planning. Each municipality and  district was able to present the encountered difficulties and to receive expert guidance and such including obtaining and analyzing the data necessary for the territory, identifying the problems of the Roma community and the planning of specific measures and activities to address them. On questions relating to the development of specific budgets to municipal plans, Mrs. Ivanova explained that plans are currently being drawn up covering the period 2012 - 2014., which overlaps and follows the Action Plan of the National Strategy of the Republic of Bulgaria for Roma Integration 2012 – 2020 and National Action Plan for the "Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015."

A working groupto the Action Plan was formed for better integration and planning of financial resources from EU funds 2014 2020 for the next programming period 2014-2020. It is chaired by the Minister of operating EU funds - Tomislav Donchev.

Special attention was paid to the planning of resources in municipal action plans. Julia Grigorova from Amalipe shared the organization experience in the development of the pilot action plan to support the integration policies of Dolna Banya Municipality, Sofia District. She stressed the importance of better identifying the problems of the Roma community and to be tackled during the  programming period 2014 - 2020. The availability of municipal integration plan will probably be included in the preliminary conventions (ex-ante conditionality) to each municipality to participate in the absorption of EU funds, said Ms. Grigorova. She also emphasized the need to include specific activities that will lead to a change in the lives of the Roma and the majority population. Amalipe propose the inclusion of EPA "Roma folklore", the development of programs to decrease the dropout rate among Roma children in school, and the establishment of community development centers: good practices which effectiveness we checked repeatedly in our work, said Julia Grigorova.

Municipal strategies and action plans in their final form should be made by January  31 2013.They should be submitted to vote at a meeting of the municipal councils up to February 28 2013. Regional planning documents are available on www.nccedi.government.bg, in the section "Regional Councils" and "National Strategy of the Republic of Bulgaria for Roma Integration on 2012-2020."