On January 21, 2016 Center for Democratic studies held a public discussion on "Efficiency of local investment in Roma communities" to discuss the opportunities, challenges and best practices in local investment in the Roma communities, as well as ways to increase the level and efficiency of those investments. The discussion was attended by representatives of local authorities, state administration and non-governmental organizations, including Roma associations.
The event was opened by Mrs. Iva Alexandrova, senior analyst at the Sociological Program of the Center for Democratic study, and Mrs. Milena Hristova, adviser on Ethnic and Demographic Issues to the Deputy Prime Minister on demographic and social policy at the Council of Ministers. In her opening speech, Mrs Hristova emphasized the importance of the issue of Roma inclusion and outlined the main issues that would cover the new programming period of the "Human Resources Development" operational program and which would substantially affect the Roma community. The strategy to follow an integrated approach at the municipal level, and the development of an individual approach for each district with compact Roma population has been underlined. As concrete measures were mentioned the scheme for socio-economic inclusion of vulnerable groups, the issue of regulation of the neighborhoods and the need for set of measures for regulating, issuing status of tolerance, providing new areas and control to illegal construction, difficulties in enrolling children in kindergartens and the role of municipalities in determining their fees, ensuring the sustainability of mediation.
Mrs. Alexandrova outlined the scope of the survey in the town of Kavarna and brought out the main accents of the achieved results. The most visible were the effects of public investment made in the areas of improving infrastructure and access to public services, improving the quality of living conditions, reducing the levels of poverty and social exclusion and significant reducing the number of crimes in the town. Within the field of health, education and the labor market there were both good examples and not so successful measures. She also stressed the interaction between the Roma community and the municipality as an important element for the success of investments.
After the presentation of the survey results, Mr. Gancho Iliev, chairman of "World without Borders" association, one of the partners in the initiative, shared his impressions of the attitudes of local communities and their evaluation in terms of integration policies. Mr. Iliev emphasized on the need for the community to realize the need for inclusion and development of its potential, which could prevent its attitude of a consumer. He gave the example of Kavarna, where Roma people cooperate with institutions, pay their taxes and bills, and experts in the institutions accept the community as equal and do not discriminate it. Mr. Iliev called the Association of Municipalities to support steps to provide land for Roma to build houses legally following the example of Kavarna. He also recalled the example of Radnevo, where the first Roma houses were built, supported by a social program, but due to poor management are already in poor condition.
Mrs Anelia Dudinova, Community Development Coordinator of the Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance "Amalipe" shared the experience of the organization in working with parents and children at risk of dropping out of school. As a positive example she cited the town of Elin Pelin, which has a quarter of Roma population in which there is no unemployment, the municipality is committed to the employment of Roma, all children complete secondary education and there are 10 Roma university graduaters. Mrs. Dudinova shared her observation that the Roma community is in the process of modernization and that in many municipalities, including Ihtiman, Samokov, Botevgrad, Etropole, there are Roma representatives at the expert level, which can be partners of the municipalities.
In the discussion on the conclusions of the report, Mrs Daniela Ushatova by the National Association of Municipalities in Bulgaria expressed the view that the model in Kavarna showed how integrated policies and a combination of will and resources could lead to positive changes. From an economic perspective the measures of the municipality support the development of the local economy, which continues to operate thanks to the construction of houses and hotels in the neighborhood. Mrs. Ushatova informed that there would be targeted funding for the development of general plans of municipalities due to the dynamic migration processes and outdated database. She focused on aligning the living conditions of Roma with other Bulgarian citizens as a long-term benefit with specific effects on fiscal and social payments. Tthe negative performance of the topic in the media was also mentioned.
Mrs. Irina Fajon, head of the Bulgarian-Swiss cooperation program and the program to promote the social inclusion of Roma and other vulnerable groups, shared best practices on the topic preventing school dropout and migration of children from Glasgow, Ghent, Gothenburg and other European cities. The main problems, according to her were the lack of information on whether children from migrant families have been short-term or long-term migrants as well as the lack of documents certifying the class of the children Mrs. Fajon appealed for greater visibility of the best examples of inclusion of the Roma in Bulgaria.
Mrs. Hristova shared the results of a meeting on the development of policies to improve the living conditions in Roma neighborhoods. Among the proposals discussed were the adoption of an individual approach for each quarter to reflect the specifics of each situation; developing and supporting several types of projects for construction of houses; making arrangements at national level to support municipalities by providing funding, legislative changes, support, changing land use, etc. In connection with the proposals submitted for the development of policies to improve housing conditions and other investments, Mrs. Alexandrova appealed to targeted data collection on the status of the neighborhoods before starting investment, which would allow tracking of the effects of these investments.
Mrs. Juliana Metodieva, editor of Marginalia, took a stand on the issue of negative media images of Roma and the hostile attitude of the media towards the community as a whole. She urged the newly elected mayors to be encouraged to solve the problem of integration of Roma communities. In this regard, Mrs. Alexandrova shared her experience with the study of public attitudes in different municipalities against the inclusion of Roma and positive attitudes among Bulgarian community in Kavarna, where positive results were visible.
Mrs. Metodieva set the problems of the Roma in Sofia Municipality. Mrs. Ushatova said that the main focus of the policy of Sofia, concerning the Roma, was the social policy and researching poverty in the neighborhoods. Due to the complexity of the problems in the capital, the municipality has set up a team committed to study the status of families as a result of which they provide specialized assistance. Exchange of experience and good practices in the field of solving housing problems with local government representatives in Madrid was made.
Mrs. Ana Topakbashyan from the National Council for Cooperation on Ethnic and Integration Issues informed of the impending construction of a system for monitoring and control of implementation of the National Roma Strategy. She expressed her willingness to help improving the coordination between different departments of the administration.
The discussion was closed by Mrs. Alexandrova, after concluding the highlights and suggestions and noting the willingness of various stakeholders to put accent on positive examples for the inclusion of Roma in the country and coordination in the development of specific measures appropriate to the needs of each municipality. Integrated approach of public investment has already bacome a part of the national strategy for Roma inclusion, as well as a source of many good practices.
The public discussion was preceded by a press conference to present the results of the report.
Source: CSD.bg
