Social Inclusion Forum Zagreb, Croatia, 26-27 November 2008

1. Social Inclusion ForumZagreb, Croatia, 26-27 November 2008 Montenegro Presentation

2. National definition of Social exclusion/inclusion As defined in Poverty Alleviation and Social Inclusion Strategy (PASIS), social exclusion implies possibility to have access to services (of social protection system, education, health and culture). This term brings together material and socio-psychological aspects living standards. National Social Inclusion definition should be further defined with NHDR (National Human Development Report on Social Exclusion) due to be produced in course of next year.

3. Social exclusion DIMENSIONS • Economic (income per household member is below 60% median equivalent rate) • Labour (unemployed, long-term unemployed) • Socio-cultural (“exclusion from society” absence of participation into social, cultural, etc. events i.e. in “community life”. (absence of participation in volunteer, humanitarian, political, NGO and trade union activities)

4. Who are socially excluded: • The poor and socially vulnerable • Persons with Disabilities • Roma • Refugees and displaced persons • Children and youth with developmental disorders • Children without parental care • Juveniles delinquents • Children and women domestic violence victimes • Drug and alcohol addicts • Elderly

5. Social exclusion and poverty reduction – policy frameworks • PRSP (Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy - DPRS 2003-2006) in 2003. Poverty was treated as multidimensional phenomenon. • In 2007 the Government adopted Poverty and Alleviation and Social Inclusion Strategy 2007-2011 (PASIS) as a kind of updated, follow up PRSP that covers sectors: education, health, social protection and employment.

6. Social exclusion and poverty reduction – policy frameworks, cont’d In addition, the following strategies and strategic documents are adopted: • Strategy for Durable Solutions of Refugees and IDPs issues • National Action Plan “Roma Inclusion Decade 2005-15” • Strategy for Improvement of position of RAE population in Montenegro • Social and Child Protection Development Strategy • Strategy for Inclusion of Disabled People • Strategy for Protection of Elderly in Montenegro

7. Lessons learnt • One of the key qualities of the above stated strategic document is that these are developed within an wide, intensive, quality participatory process that involved: The Government, local self-government, NGOs, and international organisations. • Throughout the process of development of these strategies, that were development in partnership with international organisations the expectations among the general public were raised in terms of potential funding expected from the international partners. The funding failed to happen and so the realisation of the above stated documents were mainly funded by the Government of Montenegro

8. Key policy challenges today and how are they addressed by current national strategies/policy frameworks Social welfare: • Introduction of new, innovative community based and beneficiary oriented quality social services. • Decentralisation of social welfare system and introduction of social services plurality providers (along with Social Welfare Centres (managed from the central level, CSOs, local authorities and business sector should provide quality social services) • Improvement of services in residential social institutions and gradual decrease of the beneficiaries from the institutions to community/family based on individual programmes

9. Key policy challenges today and how are they addressed by current national strategies/policy frameworks, cont’d Employment: • Special programmes need to developed to make labour market more inclusive in order to integrate “hard-to-employ groups” i.e. to improve socially excluded groups access to employment and income generation opportunities for their transfer from welfare to work and for their greater social inclusion • The Employment Agency of Montenegro, in cooperation with the relevant institutions, implement a number of project to increase employment opportunities for hard- to- employ groups

10. Key policy challenges today and how are they addressed by current national strategies/policy frameworks, cont’d Education: • Improve overall education system to better address need of vulnerable children and adults (Children with Disabilities, Roma) in inclusive education setting. • Improve the system to better feed the labour market needs and promote life long learning (Strategy for education of the adults 2005-2015) • Decentralisation of the system – implying local authorities greater jurisdictions and their co-funding of education institutions in their communities

11. Key policy challenges today and how are they addressed by current national strategies/policy frameworks, cont’d • Health: improved access to quality health services including refugees and DP access to tertial health services. • Statistics: Establishment of a practical, internationally comparable system for poverty and social exclusion measurement, monitoring and evaluation • Regional disparities: • Prioritise and redistribute resources (the Government and local authorities should allocate progamme budgets) to throughout sectors (health, education, social welfare, employment) reduce regional disparities. Local integrated strategies (covering all the vulnerable groups) should be developed and enforced in the communities with high poverty rates.

12. Mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation • Within MHLSW, PASIS Monitoring and Evaluation Unit will operate and its task is to follow implementation of the PASIS’s Action Plan. This Unit will coordinate poverty researches, maintain permanent contact with line Ministries, MMONTSTAT (national statistical office), CSOs, local government representatives, social partners, media and international development partners in order to establish quality monitoring and evaluation system. • Particular attention will be paid to regular poverty data (both absolute and relative) collection and identification of poverty related programmes. Line Ministers are in charge of monitoring and implementation of projects under their competence and monitoring of indicators (access to education, health, employment, social services • MONTSTAT should be strengthened to develop set of indicators to be evaluated, updated and provide poverty analysis in the form of Living Standard Measurement Survey - LSMS • Note: The NHDR on Social Exclusion will provide plenty of data and indicators: Poverty Indicators; EC Leaken Indicators (relative and income based); Relevant Social Exclusion Indicators; Human Development Indicators and Indices: Social Exclusion Index and HDI. Negotiations with Monstat are ongoing to host these into their DevInfo database for public access to data.

13. Inter-ministerial cooperation, cooperation with relevant institutions, CSOs, business? So far there is a communication between the state entities and NGOs over certain issues. Once Strategy (and its accompanying Action Plan) for Cooperation between the Government and NGOs, is adopted, an Agreement/Memorandum of Understanding between NGOs and the line institutions should be verified but establishment of working bodies for coordination of NGOs in each state’s entity that would follow process of NGOs’ consultation and information sharing, participation in implementation and evaluation of all the state entities policies and the Agreement itself. In this manner, an institutional mechanism that obliges state entities to involve NGOs into all the phases of the policies development and enforcement

14. Future plans and support needed from international actors • An improved coordination of donors, state entities with participation of CSO sector is necessary in order to in better quality manner perform resources allocation for priority issues addressing. • MHLSW needs further support of the international actors both in expertise and funding terms for implementation of all the above stated strategies. (For ex. MHLSW supported by UNDP, is fundraising project Social Innovation Programme based on the best UNDP’s SIF project practices, and social enterprise projects practices that should enforce social welfare system reform and reduce poverty and social exclusion. • MHLSW in terms of social security policy development, will need support in development of JIM (Joint Inclusion Memorandum) once Montenegro is granted EU candidate country status

15. Thank you for your attention Q & A