Montenegro

Making a difference in Montenegrin society through a new project for enhancing social inclusion: Social inclusion is not just a couple of words, it means putting human beings at the centre of all policies

Podgorica, 22 February 2011

“Important element in the overall human development progress and on the path towards the EU is the enhancement of social welfare reform in Montenegro aimed at achieving the highest quality of services for the Montenegrin population,” said Alexander Avanessov, UNDP Resident Representative/UN Resident Coordinator to Montenegro on the occasion of launching the project “Reform of the Social Welfare and Child Care System – Enhancing Social Inclusion in Montenegro”. The main goal of the project is to improve the quality of life of the most vulnerable groups of the Montenegrin population and to achieve their active participation in the society.

The project is funded by the EU with 3 million Euros, and will be implemented by the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare and the Ministry of Education and Sports, with technical and expert support from the UNDP and the UNICEF in Montenegro. It is comprised of three components: 1) Inclusive education services; 2) Social welfare reform and 3) Child Care System Reform, and it aims at establishing a comprehensive, inclusive and sustainable social and child welfare system.

At the media conference organized on the occasion of launching the joint project, Mr. Suad Numanović, Minister of Labour and Social Welfare pointed out: “The EU integration process means that Montenegro is obliged to actively promote social cohesion through mechanisms that guarantee adequate level of social protection.” He reminded that the reform of social welfare and child care was defined by the Development Strategy adopted by the Government of Montenegro in 2008. “The main goal of the reform is to enhance protection of the poor, to identify the needs and to strategically plan the services that will support life in the community. Such development needs to be supported by the social welfare system defined by law, in accordance with the international standards, planned and organized to meet the needs of the community, and based on the principles of decentralization and participative decision making,” said Numanović. He further explained that the Ministry of Education and Sports is in charge for the implementation of the first project component that refers to inclusion of Roma children and children with disabilities into the education system. “The Ministry of Labour and Welfare is responsible for the implementation of the other two components, where some of the activities will include drafting amendments to the Law on Social Welfare and Child Care System and establishing of an institute for social welfare that would be a regulator for technical assistance to other institutions in this domain,” said Minister Numanović. He also emphasized that the realization of the project would result in long-term and sustainable solutions for the Education and Social Welfare System in Montenegro.

Mr. Srđan Raičević, Secretary of the Ministry of Education and Sports announced that resource centres would be established through this project for education of children with disabilities. Those resource centres will provide counselling and support at the earliest age. “One of the goals is to transform specialized institutions into resource centres that will direct their educational purpose towards children with more difficult, very difficult and combined disabilities. Every resource centre will be responsible for a certain type of disability,” said Mr. Raičević. He also explained that resource centres would be established for children with hearing and speech impairment, for all levels of intellectual impairments and autism, as well as for physical and behavioural impediments. “Those centres will broaden their activities and will provide human resource, expert and counselling support to children. The Ministry aims at greater inclusion of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian children into education system,” said Mr. Raičević.

Mr. Nicola Bertolini, Head of Operations Section at the Delegation of the European Union to Montenegro said: “Social inclusion is not just a couple of words, but it means putting human beings at the centre of all policies. Montenegro needs to work harder on enhancing the Social Welfare System, strengthening national capacities and institutions for protection of the most vulnerable groups.” He stressed that the aim is to harmonize policies and practise and to establish standards in accordance with the EU standards. “The Reform will not happen over night, but we expect that this project will provide the zest that will further be pursued by the Government. You do not have this kind of project in other Balkan countries. The European Commission reiterated in its opinion on Montenegro’s accession that we are worried about the situation in this field.  The year 2010 was a year of fight against poverty and social exclusion. This is why we strongly believe it is the right time to conduct the reform of the Social Welfare and Child Care System in Montenegro, especially in light of its aspirations for the EU integration,” Mr. Bertolini concluded.
 
Ms. Noala Skinner, UNICEF Montenegro Representative said: “Within this Project, UNICEF will support the Government of Montenegro to accelerate child care system reform in Montenegro. This project will provide an important input to meeting some of the recommendations for fulfilment of the rights of children in need of special protection, as outlined in the analytical report to the EU Opinion.” She also explained that UNICEF Montenegro would take multi-sectoral and multi-layered approach, working on all aspects of reform – revision of the legal framework and introduction of robust standards, capacity development across the health, education and social welfare sectors, behaviour change communication, and introduction of new services and strengthening of existing ones to support inclusion. “Through this project, we will assist the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare to provide services that will allow every child in Montenegro to grow up in a supportive, protective and caring family environment,” Ms. Skinner underlined.

Mr. Alexander Avanessov, UNDP Resident Representative/UN Resident Coordinator to Montenegro said: “The urgency and importance of developing such a project for enhancing social inclusion in Montenegro was again underlined by the negative impact of the economic and financial crises which impacted negatively well-being of many Montenegrins and caused the increase of poverty level from 4, 9% in 2008 to 6,8% in 2009, with the highest toll on the vulnerable groups.” He further explained that the core of this project for support of Social Welfare Reform was to assist the Government, local administrations and communities, as well as other relevant stakeholders; including NGOs to enhance the provision of quality community based social services to elderly, persons with disabilities, and others. “The key approach in doing this is to promote the community based services that focus on day-care, to enable beneficiaries to receive care and to live with their families and in their communities. This will be enabled through establishment of a national Social Innovation Fund and 3 pilot Social Innovation Programmes which will operate at the municipal level. Vulnerable groups, persons with disabilities, elderly, social welfare beneficiaries, single parents, long term unemployed, youth at risk, and many others will directly benefit from this project. This is why I strongly believe that we can help make a difference in Montenegrin society,” Mr. Avanessov emphasized.

*      *      *

About the UNDP Component of the Project “Reform of the Social Welfare and Child Care System – Enhancing Social Inclusion in Montenegro”:
Provision of community based services will be enabled through establishment of a national Social Innovation Fund (SIF) and 3 pilot Social Innovation Programmes (SIPs) which will operate at the municipal level.
The SIF is envisaged as a mechanism on the national level that enables technical, capacity support and funds for the establishment of social services at the municipal level. Thus, the task is to establish beneficiary oriented innovative social services for adult vulnerable beneficiaries in three municipalities that are to be selected.
These services might include, as follows: daily care centres for people with disabilities, daily centres for the elderly, home help/assistance; various support services for families at risk and in crisis (single parents headed), youth at risk, vulnerable long-term unemployed; pilot welfare to work (W2W) and social enterprise initiatives that support welfare dependent individuals transfer from social welfare to work; initiatives for volunteer engagement in services delivery, etc.
Vulnerable persons with disabilities, elderly, social welfare beneficiaries, single parents, long term unemployed, youth at risk, etc. will directly benefit from the project. Through NGOs, Social Welfare Centres, local authorities, the vulnerable should be included in decision making, design, development of projects and in actual project implementation (for example: a long-term unemployed single mother could find a job in a daily care centre for people with disabilities). Participation of the vulnerable in service provision would eventually lead to their increased social inclusion.
The SIF is a mechanism for actual execution of the reform though providing funds, capacities upgrading and on-going support to local actors to establish and run community services.
Local NGOs, in partnership with Centres for Social Welfare and/or local authorities, Employment Bureau will submit their project proposals to the SIF though an ‘open calls for proposals’ system. The SIF will fund community projects on the basis of transparent criteria. The SIF will support partnership and regular community-level meetings to jointly plan, share updates and experiences and coordinate projects, so that local actors can learn and support each other and share best practices in the field.
In addition to funding of social services projects, the SIF will provide substantive support to strengthening of the capacities of local actors, providing training in proposal formulation, implementation, coordination, monitoring, evaluation, establishment of social services standards and other relevant activities.

The SIF will support the implementation of national legislation and some of key social national strategies, and will enforce the social welfare system reform through: 

• Introducing innovative, cost-effective, quality and beneficiary-oriented social services utilising the best EU and regional social services practices, including welfare to work (W2W) projects that assist welfare dependent individuals to transfer from social welfare to work, social enterprises and/or similar social economy schemes;
• Decentralization and introduction of diversity of social services providers that will involve CSOs, local authorities, businesses and Social Welfare Centres, etc. and by developing their capacities for decentralising the social welfare system;
• Deinstitutionalisation – gradually moving beneficiaries from residential social institutions (e.g., Homes for the Elderly) to new community-based services in their communities.