EU funds – Page 7 – ERGO Network

CLLD Training for Local Action Groups and potential beneficiaries

ERGO member Nevo Parudimos from Romania organised its first training on Community-Led Local Development for Local Action Groups and potential CLLD beneficiaries. The training was held in cooperation with the National Federation of Local Action Groups on 15/16 November 2017 in Tecuci, Romania.

The 40 participants, representing 10 LAGs from the South-East region of Romania, Roma NGOs and Roma from local communities, learned how CLLD can be used for the development and funding of projects targeting Roma communities. Parts of the programme were held for both LAGs and beneficiaries together in order to exchange ideas and create partnerships. During other parts the group split into two in order to focus on the specific needs of both groups.

The training was made possible thanks to the financial support of the European Commission’s EaSI programme through a Framework Partnership Agreement between ERGO Network and DG Employment.

If you would like to read more about ERGO’s work on the CLLD, visit our website.

data synchronization can be challenging, but with prime sync

Closer to Communities – Roma Coordinators for better use of EU Funds

ERGO member Autonomia Foundation from Hungary recently published a set of recommendations based on the outcomes of their project “Closer to Communities – Roma Coordinators for better use of EU Funds”, supported by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme of the European Union.

The general purpose of the “Closer to Communities” programme was to increase the efficiency of projects benefitting from EU structural funds. The programme was implemented in 15 disadvantaged communities where a large number of Roma live – these communities were assisted by local Roma coordinators in their local development. The Hungarian National Association of Local Authorities (TÖOSZ) participated in the implementation and supported the national dissemination of lessons learnt. ERGO Network contributed to the presentation and dissemination of results at international level.

As a result of the programme, 11 applications for Roma integration projects were submitted to EU Calls for Proposals, which will provide close to 1 Million Euro worth of local development funds if supported. Hundreds of local governments were directly informed of the project at the county forums and in workshops organized jointly with TÖOSZ. In addition, dozens of mayors were involved in discussions on Roma integration challenges and possible solutions. The experiences and suggestions of the project were presented at a working group meeting in Brussels with different experts and civil servants of the European Commission in May 2017.

The main recommendations focus on better dissemination of good practices, stronger conditionality of European funding, more transparent funding rules as well as more core funding for Roma and pro-Roma NGOs in order to act as independent watchdog organisations.

Read more about the project results and recommendations here.

As one outcome of the project, local communities took part in common art projects, focusing on community video making. Have a look at the film ‘Closer to Communities’ .

Regional Meeting with Local Action Groups on Roma

Regional Meeting with Local Action Groups on Roma

On 15 June 2017 in Ploiesti City, ERGO member “Center of Resources for Social Inclusion CRIS” organized the first Regional Meeting with representatives of 7 Local Action Groups (LAGs) from South-Muntenia Region and South-Est Region in Romania.

The aim of the meeting was to present Roma interests in the LAGs territories and their specific handcrafts in order to identify potential beneficiaries from LAGs territories and to build new relationships with local authorities. The participants agreed that in order to increase the capacity of LAG teams to better work with and for Roma and to increase the number of Roma as beneficiaries in the measures of Local Development Strategies, LAGs animation is very much needed.

As an outcome of the meeting CRIS will develop a recommendation letter regarding the effective participation of Roma in accessing, implementing and monitoring Local Development Strategies of LAGs.

Stakeholder Workshop ‘Building-up quality of life in the local area’

Stakeholder Workshop ‘Building-up quality of life in the local area’

On May 16 Eurofound organized a stakeholder meeting on the topic ‘Building-up quality of life in the local area’. Dr. Ileana Rotaru from Nevo Parudimos and ERGO member presented the perspective of Social hubs in rural Europe: social inclusion and Roma integration.

Between 2017 and 2020 Eurofound will carry-out exploratory research on ways to build up quality of life in the local area, whether urban or rural. In particular, it seeks to investigate two questions: a) what physical and social factors in the local area are of particular importance for people’s quality of life? and b) what can be learned from initiatives to enhance quality of life in the local area?

Our input to the meeting was that Roma communities cannot be forgotten when the ‘local dimensions’ of quality of life is targeted in this project. We stressed the necessity of including Roma in different types of initiatives and policies aiming to improve quality of life.

Present at the meeting were Mr. Tadas Leonikas from Eurofund, Eurofound Research Manager Mr. Hans Dubois, different stakeholders from EU state members and municipalities and European Commission representatives: DG EMPL (Unit: Modernisation of Social Protection Systems), DG SANTE (Unit: Health determinants and inequality) and from DG REGIO (Unit: Inclusive Growth, Urban and Territorial Development).

Evaluating with your target group

Evaluating with your target group

Despite the large and sustained focus of policy efforts to Roma inclusion, results remain limited. Thorough evaluation of programmes and projects is crucial to identify reasons for weak performance and should ideally lead to stronger project design. The current practice however usually leaves out the perspective of the final beneficiaries, their opinions remain invisible. The experience of ERGO Network is that programme and project evaluations, if they are available at all, often lack depth, fail to address shortcomings and in many cases present an image that does not correspond to the reality of those the project or programme aimed to support. This represents a missed opportunity for achieving structural improvements in policy approaches to Roma inclusion.

In 2016, ERGO Network and its members in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Czech Republic together with Fundacion Secretariado Gitanos (FSG) conducted a small-scale investigation based on beneficiary interviews and desk research to explore how better use could be made of the involvement of final beneficiaries in evaluation. The research presents a number of exploratory conclusions about the value of systematic inclusion of the perspective of final beneficiaries to better evaluate the quality of projects, strengthen project design and review and encourage project implementers to adopt a stronger focus towards achieving results for their target groups.

The conclusions are valid for all beneficiary groups of programmes and projects, but are of particular importance for Roma, who are often put into measures that are not thought through, do not fit to their particular needs and are characterised more by opportunism of project providers than by usefulness for beneficiaries. The research shows how external inclusive evaluation can contribute to combatting corruption, increasing the quality of programmes and highlighting the positive but intangible effects of programmes, for instance in benefitting community life or boosting self-confidence.

Read here the synthesis report of ERGO Network’s research project.

The fact-finding work received financial support from the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Innovation “EaSi” (2014-2020).