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Roma NGOs involvement within Local Action Groups of rural area in the Western region of Romania

Roma NGOs involvement within Local Action Groups of rural area
in the Western region of Romania

The present research aims to analyze the Roma NGO’s/ community involvement in the Local Action Groups’ (LAG) activity of the rural area in the Western region of Romania based on their relation with the public authorities and the LAG’s management teams. In this context, we aim to identify possible active measures for Roma NGO’s in order to strengthen the Roma involvement within the LAG’s and to analyze possible main obstacles based on actors’ perception and experience.

Download the research paper here

Call for expert on CLLD

Call for expert

ERGO Network is contracting an expert on Community-Led Local Development and Roma inclusion to coordinate part of our work programme on CLLD in 2018

Role of the expert

We are searching for an expert to coordinate ERGO Network’s capacity-building and advocacy work on Roma inclusion in the CLLD in 2018, which is part of our Annual Work Programme ‘Roma Included in Social Europe’ funded by DG Employment.

2018 is a crucial year for CLLD in Europe, as important steps are taken on EU and Member State level for the new programming period 2020-2027 and the Urban CLLD is expanded. The expert is expected to support ERGO and its member organisations in Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania in their capacity-building and advocacy work and to build on the experiences and achievements of the network in the area of CLLD from the past years.

Specifically, the expert is expected to:

Develop stage 3 and 4 of ERGO Network’s CLLD Quality Audit on Roma participation and implementation, coach members in using it, collect results and preparing the synthesis report
Develop stage 1 and 2 of a CLLD Quality Audit for the Urban CLLD
Develop a capacity-building trajectory for Roma NGOs and LAGs on Roma inclusion in the Urban CLLD
Support ERGO Network in setting up an EU advocacy strategy to ensure the next programming period includes Roma experiences in the CLLD.

Profile:

Excellent knowledge of Community-led Local Development in rural and urban settings and in the contexts of Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia
Expertise on Roma issues and policies on European Union and member state level
Experience working with civil society organisations in the fields of advocacy and capacity-building
Good contacts with relevant stakeholders, such as Federations of LAGs, Rural Development Network, DG Regio
Good writing and analytical skills and ability to concisely summarise results for different audiences
Ability to work independently and at the same time coordinate regularly with the ERGO team and the member organisations

Conditions

Contract and budget: The expert will be subcontracted to fulfil part of the work programme in the Framework Partnership Agreement between ERGO Network and DG Employment. The expert has no rights vis-à-vis the European Commission.

The expert shall be paid for the execution of the activities and services a fee of maximum 5,800 EUR, all taxes and VAT included.

Application procedure

Interested and qualified candidates should submit the following documents:

CV
Motivation letter
Proposed methodology and timeline

We will select the expert according to the principle “Value for money”. Please send your application to info@ergonetwork.org, indicating in the subject of the email “Application CLLD Expert” by 10 July 2018, 23:59 CET.

A detailed project summary can be provided upon request.

For further questions, please contact Gabriela Hrabanova (g.hrabanova@ergonetwork.org)

Download the Call for expert

How realistic is the new EU programming period when it comes to Roma?

Last month the European Commission has launched their proposals for the next European Union Multi Annual Financial Framework (MFF) 2021-2027 called “A Modern Budget for a Union that Protects, Empowers and Defends”. The MFF is meant to increase solidarity, social cohesion and social protection and will be supported by a series of proposals and financial instruments such as ESF+ ERDF, InvestEU, Eramsus+ etc. These proposals are under discussions and until the final approval in 2019.

ERGO Network fed into the process of the European Commission in drafting and proposing new priorities for its programmes and frameworks targeting Roma through a set of specific recommendations in which we address a number of shortcomings that must be tackled in the next cycle.

The proposed MFF did mentions some general points that are in line with our suggestions, such as the fact that there should be an open and transparent monitoring process, that the EU funds shall not support actions that promote segregation and that there should be more focus on capacity building for civil society organisations.

Roma are mentioned in the proposal of the MFF: “promoting socio-economic integration of third country nationals and of marginalised communities such as the Roma”. However, this narrative implies that they are still not seen as European citizens; furthermore there are no specific indicators that would reflect a stronger focus on Roma inclusion in the current proposal. The annexes of the proposal only briefly mention that there should be “inclusion of the thematic enabling conditions such as National Roma Integration Strategy”.

ERGO Network also calls upon the European Council and the European Parliament to ensure in their negotiations that the EU Framework for Roma Integration will continue. The ERGO secretariat together with the Alliance against Antigypsyism sent recommendations to Members of the European Parliament ahead of the European Parliament plenary debate on 13^th of June on the Implementation of and follow-up to the EU framework for National Roma Integration Strategies. Our position was clearly strengthened by most of the European Parliament Members. They argued in favour of a renewed post-2020 EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies, which should address antigypsyism as a central priority.

However, the 25% earmarking for social inclusion under the ESF+ , the main fund supporting Roma inclusion, is still not enough. So far most of the EU member states have easily reached this amount in the current ESF framework and still there has been little or no progress in tackling poverty, discrimination and social exclusion.

Without a clear Framework, thematic objectives and specific budget lines, Roma, as the biggest minority in the EU, will again be lost in the new programming period mixed under the marginalized groups and competing with “third country nationals”

ERGO will continue to monitor the discussions and negotiations in Brussels and ask a strengthened EU Roma Framework with clear objective and indicators and sufficient resources to address inclusion and Antigypsyism.

Support for the least developed districts and regional development in the Slovak Republic

Support for the least developed districts and regional
development in the Slovak Republic

Currently, CLLD support is aimed at strengthening the economic, social and territorial cohesion of predominantly rural areas and ensuring long-term sustainable territorial development, addressing the relationship between rural development centers and their functional background with the potential for complementarity to integrated territorial investment and sustainable development.That is why we have decided to look at other government measures that focus on regional development.

Download the study here

Opening up Communities, Closing down Institutions

Opening up Communities, Closing down Institutions: Harnessing the European Structural and Investment Funds

On 22nd November 2017, ERGO Director Jamen Gabriela Hrabanova took part in an event of the initiative Community Living for Europe: Structural Funds Watch, where a report on the use of EU funds for community leaving was launched. The event took part in the European Parliament and was co-hosted by Mairead McGuinness, MEP (EPP) and Vice President of the European Parliament and Iskra Mihaylova, MEP (ALDE) and Chair of the European Parliament Committee on Regional Development.Regarding children, evidence shows that a caring and protective family, immediate and extended, is central to a child’s health, development, and protection. Community living is a human right, recognised under European and international law. However, Roma children are overrepresented in institutional care, confirming that poverty is the chief cause of children being separated from their families and placed in institutions.

The report analyses the role of the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) with respect to the transition from institutional to community-based living for children and young people, including those with disabilities, adults with disabilities and older persons in EU Member States. It contains examples, both positive and negative, that demonstrate how the Member States have implemented the ESIF regulations, how they are currently using or are planning to use the ESIF to support the transition to community-based living, and provides concrete recommendations for the current and next funding period post 2020.

Jamen Gabriela Hrabanova from ERGO Network brought the Roma perspective to the launch event. Children and young people make up almost half of today’s Roma population in Europe (around 35.7% under 15 years compared to 15% of the majority population). Investing in deinstitutionalisation is therefore an investment into Europe’s future generation that will yield very high returns. There is however a lack of preventive measures to stop institutionalisation of Roma children, as the number of social workers who support discriminated and poor families is insufficient and investment into community projects is extremely scarce.

She pointed out that new kinds of services need to be created that are adapted to the needs of the people, who should be involved in the design of these services. Only when beneficiaries have their say, the use of European Structural and Investment Funds can really be effectively used for social inclusion measures. This must of course include Roma beneficiaries, as they are often a main target for social inclusion measures.

The initiative Community Living for Europe looked in particular into the effect of the ex-ante conditionality 9.1 that demands Member States to invest in de-institutionalisation when using European Structural and Investment Funds. Also for Roma an ex-ante conditionality (9.2) is in place. It demands Member States to have a national Roma integration strategy in place if they want to access ESIF. As with conditionality 9.1. on active inclusion however, also in the Roma field having a strategy in place does not mean that it will also be implemented. A change in policy is therefore necessary that puts more emphasis on quality of implementation of social investment measures in EU member states.

ERGO and its member organisations will continue to monitor the use of ESIF for the social inclusion and poverty reduction of Roma and greatly appreciates the report issued by Community Living for Europe: Structural Funds Watch.

You can find the report here: https://eustructuralfundswatchdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/cle-sfw_opening-up-communities-november-2017_final.pdf