Tim za socijalno uključivanje i smanjenje siromaštva

Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit of the Government of the Republic of Serbia has prepared the Study on Options for the Establishment of the Social Inclusion Fund. The aim of the initiative is to contribute to more efficient and successful utilisation of the available national and future EU funds earmarked for social inclusion.

The establishment of the Social Inclusion Fund would enable more effective and efficient support to social inclusion of vulnerable population in the Republic of Serbia. The Fund should improve the implementation of social inclusion measures foreseen by many laws and strategic documents. To establish the Fund, no additional funding or staff is required; instead, more effective results could be achieved through normative changes and better allocation of the existing resources. The Fund could be an example of doing more with less. To achieve this, it is necessary to make a decision to merge specific budget funds and administrative resources.

The achievement of the identified mission of the Fund for Social Inclusion would ensure:

1. 1.     Effective decentralisation

The Fund will provide an incentive for local governments to implement social inclusion and poverty reduction measures more efficiently within their devolved competences (e.g. social welfare services, intersectoral committees for additional support to children, local employment councils, support for poor children in education, social housing, etc.). Thus contribution will be made to the implementation of the current and future legislative framework laying down the competencies and financing of local self-government, and thus will contribute to the elimination of the obstacle underlined by the European Commission in the Progress Report for Serbia (2012): “Competencies are still conferred without a provision of sufficient capacities and resources on the local level“.

1. 2.     Local reforms and capacity building

The Fund will enable building local governments’ capacities to apply the rules defined at the national level, in compliance with the EU standards. The Fund will facilitate developing innovative practices and pilot-projects for all to learn from, including national policy makers.

1. 3.     Intersectoral networking and building partnerships

Establishing the Fund will strengthen intersectoral cooperation and provide a platform for better coordination of social inclusion policy implementation in Serbia. The growing legal and strategic framework, local governments’ extended competencies and fiscal restrictions result in unsatisfactory coordination among partners and institutions at all levels. By establishing the Fund, this challenge will partly be overcome – it will become possible to merge dispersed budget funds and initiatives at the national level into a more powerful mechanism, and building partnerships among institutions, civil society organisations and social partners at the local level will be promoted.

1. 4.     Higher allocations at the local level (through complementary grants)

Co-financing projects and delivering pertinent training will encourage local governments to increase their budget allocations for social inclusion measures. Establishing the Fund will result in pooling the investments from the central government level (including earmarked transfers) and those from the local level in programmes in the domain of social welfare, employment, education and care for vulnerable population (in particular children, the elderly, persons with disabilities, the Roma, etc.).

1. 5.     More effective and efficient fulfilment of European integration commitments

Establishing the Fund will contribute to the fulfilment of the EU Madrid criteria concerning adequate administrative capacity, i.e. the Fund will assume the role of “intermediate body”, attending to efficient contracting and project cycle monitoring and ensuring better implementation of EU-funded projects in the social development sector. The Social Inclusion Fund will constitute a practical mechanism to ensure we utilise more EU funding earmarked for social inclusion.

1. 6.     Monitoring the effects of implemented measures

With the establishment of the Fund, conditions will be created to establish a results-oriented monitoring system, as an integral aspect of the implementation of social inclusion measures. The system will regularly receive information on the effectiveness and efficiency of investments and provide information on remedial measures to policy makers. By establishing the Social Inclusion Fund, we would have an institution that would implement expenditure control mechanisms applicable to national budget funds, as well as EU funds.

Study on Options for the Establishment of the Social Inclusion Fund in the .doc and .pdf versions you can find  here: