Strengthened capacities of representatives of municipalities Bar, Ulcinj and Herceg Novi regarding Roma and Egyptian empowerment at local level

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Wednesday, 13 March 2019 09:01

In the period of 11-12th March 2019, at the Palas Hotel in Petrovac, a training was organized on the preparation of Local Action Plans (LAP) for Roma and Egyptian Integration for the municipalities of Herceg Novi, Bar and Ulcinj, as part of the ROMACTED program - Promoting good governance and empowering the Roma community at the local level, implemented in Montenegro by the Program Office of the Council of Europe and NGO Young Roma.

The training that brought together representatives of RE communities and representatives of local institutions from these municipalities aimed at drafting the Local Action Plan, a strategic document that will serve municipalities to identify problems within the RE community, as well as solutions and measures along with the improvement of the position of the Roma community.

Municipality of Bar will make a Local Action Plan for the first time, while Herceg Novi and Ulcinj will make new action plans.

Two experts hired by the Council of Europe presented to the audience the steps in the development of the LAP, as well as steps to monitor the implementation and budgeting of the document itself. After the training, experts will continue to provide support to municipalities to finalize LAPs. Parallel to these other experts, ROMACTED will work with municipalities to identify LAP funding opportunities, recommendations related to providing better services to Roma and Egyptians, identifying the needs of RE communities, and the need for local governments to improve their capacity for better integration. The same training will be organized for the municipalities of Berane, Bijelo Polje and Nikšić on 18th and 19th of March.

The participants at the training had the opportunity to learn the steps in the strategic planning process, how to define the vision, the problem areas, and how to predict the budgetary funds for the implementation of the measures foreseen by the LAP. Participants were actively working on drafting, and valuable suggestions for better development were provided by the representatives of the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights, headed by Ms. Tatjana Anđelić, Head of the Department for European Integration, Programming and Implementation of EU Funds as well as the Secretary for Youth, Sports and social care of the municipality of Tivat, Darka Ognjanović.

Regional programmme ROMACTED is a joint programme of the European Union (DG NEAR) and the Council of Europe, which is being implemented in the Western Balkans and Turkey in more than 60 municipalities, and in Montenegro it is implemented in Berane, Bijelo Polje, Nikšić, Podgorica, Herceg Novi, Tivat , Bar and Ulcinj, and implemented by the Council of Europe Program Office in Podgorica, supported by the NGO Young Roma. The aim of the programme is to cooperate with representatives of eight municipalities and representatives of local institutions in terms of building their capacities for the development of local government documents on the one hand, while the goal is to strengthen the RE community on the other hand in terms of linking them, identifying problems and joint approach in resolving the same. The ROMACTED program was officially launched on 17 July 2018, when a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between representatives of the Council of Europe, representatives of eight municipalities and the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights, and will last until April 2020.