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“Strengthen national and local systems to support the effective socio-economic integration of returnees in the Western Balkans” is a regional project funded by European Commission and implemented in coordination with World Bank and Council of Europe. The sub-regional project is implemented in Albania, Serbia and North Macedonia and is administered by UNDP Istanbul Regional Hub.
This project aims to enhance the capabilities of the Western Balkan authorities to implement holistic solutions to economic and social empowerment of returnees. By tackling the root causes and negative drivers of migration of Roma & Egyptian and vulnerable populations, the project is contributing to implementation of the broader social inclusion agenda in the Western Balkans.
While, UNDP will primarily address local level challenges, the ultimate objective of the project is to translate the tested models into national regulation and public policies and programmes for sustainable reintegration of vulnerable returnees.
Key pillars where the project will base its implementation include:
Output 1- Local returnee integration strategies are developed with selected municipalities foresees development of local reintegration strategies, aiming to improve the livelihoods and social wellbeing of returnees and the broader community, tackle local governance issues, capacity and institutional bottlenecks and gaps of service providers and business ecosystems, which hinder the effective implementation of reintegration policies.
Output 2 – Elements of local returnee integration strategies are implemented in selected municipalities, including innovative activities on livelihoods and skills building, etc aims to demonstrate new approaches to economic empowerment and social cohesion, which will form the main pillars of local reintegration strategies.
Output 3- Significant number of urgent administrative issues faced by returnees are addressed will seek to identify and develop innovative approaches to public service provision, by developing and utilizing a few digitalized tools and laying the ground for introducing integrated case management.
The project “Strengthen national and local systems to support the effective socio-economic integration of returnees in the Western Balkans” is seeking one consultant who will work together with another IT expert to strengthen the capacities of governmental bodies on implementation and monitoring of the National Action Plan for Equality, Inclusion and Participation of Roma and Egyptians in Albania (2021-2025) (NAPRE).
During the last years, UNDP through several projects, has provided technical support to the Ministry of Health and Social Protection (MoHSP) and other line ministries and local government institutions for implementing inclusion policies targeting Roma and Egyptians and for following up the implementation of related action plans. In this context, a web-based system, “ROMALB” was created and upgraded periodically, reflecting the activities, baseline data and indicators, as an instrument for monitoring the national action plan implementation.
On a yearly basis, around 190 public officials at the national and local level were trained and coached on the implementation and monitoring of the National Roma/Egyptians Action Plan, including the usage of ROMALB system. As a result, MoHSP generated annual progress reports on the implementation of the Action Plan. However, MoHSP faced many challenges during the process of preparing the progress reports, including on the collection of data, discrepancy of data, disaggregation of data etc. From the other side, system users faced difficulties in collecting and reporting reliable data. With this in mind, the capacity of MoHSP, line ministries, municipalities and local institutions will be strengthened through training and coaching of the users and through the maintenance of the system.