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Representatives of Roma non-governmental organizations, working in the field of housing conditions, the Secretariat of the National Council for Cooperation on Ethnic and integration issues, national, regional and local institutions, "America for Bulgaria" Foundation, "Open Society Institute" and others participated in conference on "Best practices and basic approaches in improving the housing conditions of Roma." It was held on 28 October (Friday) in the town of Lom and was organized by Foundation "Roma - Lom", Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance "Amalipe" - Veliko Tarnovo, Roma Academy of Culture and Education - Sliven, The "Nov pat" Association - Hayredin, "World Without Borders" - Stara Zagora and the Roma Education Fund - Budapest in partnership with the National Council for Cooperation on Ethnic and integration issues (NCCEII).

Participants found severe lack of proven successful practices in public works and housing conditions in the Roma community and the lack of serious commitment by the Ministry of Regional Development for the National Programme for Improving the Housing Conditions of Roma. That program is ambitious and well laid out, but even during the period 2006 -2009 its execution was symbolic and partial, and since 2010 no resources have been targeted. Do not use targeted funds of OP "Regional Development". The only exception was the launched in 2011 on the initiative of Minister of funds T. Dontchev scheme to improve the housing conditions of marginalized communities: Firstly, it will be implemented in the municipalities of Devnya, Dupnitsa, Burgas and Varna, as we hope to create a pilot model which can be implemented nationwide in the next programming period.

It is necessary to work for improvement of the existing Roma neighborhoods,for their "de-ghettoization" and tocreate conditions for Roma who want to settle outside the neighborhood to do it. Therefore it is important the creation of legal conditions for regulating the neighborhoods including legalization of settlement of homes that meet certain clear criteria. On the other hand it is necessary approbation of innovative community-based social services supporting these families who are leaving neighborhoods to integrate successfully.Particularly, it is important to create a culture of respect for the law, regardless of the resistance, that this would create in part of families, participants stressed.

At the end of the conference participants discussed the proposed draft of the NationalRoma Strategy and agreed the following decisions:

1. The name of the document to be adopted should be "National Strategy for Roma Integration" without an "and other vulnerable groups ...", as in the preamble of the document it will be stated that it applies not only to groups who identify themselves as Roma, but also to groups defined by the local population in this way (millet, miners, etc.).

2. The Action Plan of the National Roma Strategy should be written with specific activities with specific funding until 2020 and not only until 2015;

3.The "Performance monitoring" part canbe seriously enhanced by the use ofindicators established on the Decade ofRoma Inclusion;

4. A strong communication plan is needed for the implementation of the Strategy and it should be reviewed no later than the upcoming final debate, which National Council for Cooperation on Ethnic and integration issues organizes on 14^th of November;

5.It is necessary to theAction Plan to be developed annex with specific programs that are to be announced for funding from the state budget and from the OP "Human Resources Development", OP "Regional Development" the Program for development of rural areas in the current and next programperiod;

6. The National Strategy for Roma integration should be adopted by the National Assembly. The discussed proposals to be proposed at a meeting of NCCEII and will be presented to all responsible institutions. The forum was part of a cycle national conferences, organized with the support of the "Roma initiatives" Program of the "Open Society" Institute - Budapest.