News

The second for 2009 session of the Monitoring Committee of Human Resources Development Operational Program took place in Sofia on November 10 and 11. The respective managers of the Managing Authority (Ministry of Labor and Social Policy), the Inter-mediate bodies (Ministry of Education, Employment Agency and Agency for Social Protection), representatives of DG “Employment, Equal Opportunities and Anti-discrimination) of the European Commission took part in the session together with representatives of all institutions engaged in HRD OP implementation, social partners and observers elected from 5 groups of NGOs. Roma NGOs were represented by Deyan Kolev. The session was chaired by Krassimir Popov, Deputy minister on labor and Chair of the Monitoring Committee.
All stakeholders including social partners and NGOs took part in preparing Human Resources Development OP and their involvement should not stop now, pointed in his opening remarks Thomas Bender, director of “European Social Fund, monitoring of the national policies, coordination” Department of DG “Employment” of the European Commission. He overdrew that during the economic crises special attention should be paid on the vulnerable groups: for example those who were unemployed before are worst now. The Union is looking at Bulgaria carefully and will assist for successful implementation of the operational programs, explained Mr. Bender.
The implementation of HRD OP progresses quite well in terms of contracting (18 % of the Program amount is contracted) but quite modestly in terms of payment - only 1,61 % of the Program budget is paid, pointed Filip Busz, head of “Bulgaria, Hungary, the Netherlands” unite of DG “Employment”. Prompt advance in this direction is necessary. To keep people close to the labor market and to help vulnerable groups are important tasks during the crises. Mr. Busz stressed also the need for evaluation and assessment of the Program implementation.
The Committee approved increasing the scholarship for participants in projects financed by the Program, expenses for transportation of participants who receive training, probation expenses within the project. It countermanded the requirement for financing of the subsidized employment by municipalities and other beneficiaries: it is expected that this will raise the attractiveness of all call for proposals for professional qualification.
The Committee approved also 100 million BGN for announcing call for proposals for out-of-school and out-of-class activities “Let’s make the school attractive for the young people” \it becomes permanently open until the end of the program period, 30 million BGN for developing forms of distance education by Bulgarian universities and 8 million BGN for professional practice of the students enrolled in secondary schools. As part of a joint initiative of European Commission, Ministry of Labor and Ministry of Regional Development the Committee took decision to support big initiative for deinstitutionalization of children from the special institutions. The Committee also voted for establishing sub-committee for integration of people with disabilities.
During the session the Committee approved by consensus two suggestions proposed by Deyan Kolev, representative of the Roma NGOs:
1. Increasing the budget for the call for proposals BG051PO001- 4.1.03 “Integration of children and students from the ethnic minorities in the educational system” from 6 to 12 million BGN: this would allow higher number of projects to be approved within the call;
2. Announcing targeted call for proposals within measure 1.1. of the Program directed at integration of vulnerable groups at the labor market: the call will target the most marginalized group composed by inactive and unmotivated people who are long-term unemployed and are not registered in the Labor offices: the Committee agreed with the types of activities suggested by Deyan Kolev and required Employment Agency to propose the call before the next session of the Committee

During the session Deyan Kolev made a presentation about the conclusions from the forum “Structural funds and Roma inclusion” organized by DG Employment in October in Budapest. The presentation could be downloaded here