Why a conference on Social Inclusion?
Here are two reasons:
The conference was organized in partnership by CRONO, CeRe and PACT on March 26th, 2010, and was hosted by CRONO Association in Craiova – city of residence for Dolj County and Oltenia region. The event took place within the project “Promotion of Debates on Social Inclusion in Support of the Reinforcement of the OMC on Social Protection and Social Inclusion”, in relation to the European Year 2010 for combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. National, regional and local authorities representatives took part in the meeting, together with representatives of civil society from the region, members of the working group on the Open Method of Coordination on Social Inclusion, representatives of the Bulgarian project partner (PODKREPA), and experts on social inclusion from Belgium and Ireland.
The prefect of Dolj County, Mr Eugen Georgescu, opened the conference works by offering an inspiring and realistic speech:
Today, we have the opportunity to exchange ideas and good practices in the field of social inclusion. Because we have the ambition to fight against social exclusion! Partnership is the key to success! It involves sharing and co-managing resources, risks, responsibilities, decision making and, of course, it has all the advantages and disadvantages of a collaboration.”
The debates on ‘hot’ topics of social inclusion started with a presentation of the new EU 2020 Strategy, that establishes European-wide targets related to social inclusion (such as: discrimination as a social exclusion factor, equal access to quality services, labor market access, social economy as a social inclusion tool), and good governance (such as: transparency of decision-making, public participation and consultation of all stakeholders involved). Participants brought into discussion the inappropriate way in which Romanian authorities drafted the Action Plan for the European Year 2010 for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. The latter have not consulted the NGO sector on this matter and have disregarded the European Commission’s recommendations to launch a call for applications open to NGOs, as well as to double the budget allocated by the EU for undertaking specific activities to this end.
An important contribution to the conference debates was brought by Candy Murphy, Irish expert on social inclusion and OMC, holding the role of external consultant for the Romanian partners in this project. As representative of EAPN Ireland, Mrs. Murphy underlined the importance of ensuring a legacy of the thematic year 2010, pointing out that, in the case of Romania, this legacy might consist in the agreement, by all stakeholders involved, upon a consultation mechanism in the field of social inclusion policies. The representative of the Romanian Government’s Department of European Affairs taking part in the debates stressed the importance of public consultations in the elaboration of efficient public policies that would directly respond to the real needs of the citizens. The latter also noted the extremely short period that both the European Comission and the Romanian public authorities have allocated for consulting the civil society regarding the EU 2020 Strategy. In order to counterbalance this, the Department for European Affairs will organize, in May 2010, a series of consultations with representatives of civil society in Romania, in order to establish specific national targets for Romania, in accordance with those stated in the EU 2020 Strategy.
In the second part of the conference, discussions shifted from general interest themes related to social inclusion to concrete examples of successful projects in various sectors of the social inclusion field, in Romania, Ireland and Belgium. The following organizations contributed with presentations: Sporting Club Galati Association for Disabled People (Galati, Romania), Policy Center for Roma and Minorities Association (Bucharest, Romania), Vasiliada Association (Craiova, Romania), Orizonturi Foundation (Campulung Moldovenesc, Romania). Also, the experts Isabelle Vandenbussche (Belgium) and Candy Murphy (Ireland) each held a presentation on social inclusion good practices in their countries.
The conference ended in a more technical note, with a series of discussions about the project “Promotion of social debates in support of the OMC on Social Inclusion”, focusing on the national levels – in Belgium, Bulgaria and Romania – and pointing out the national specifics of the implementation of the Open Method of Coordination – which is the common theme of all the three national projects. Each country representative presented the project stage and main results achieved so far. The conclusion reached during this session was that the Open Method of Coordination in the field of Social Inclusion provides good opportunities for establishing viable partnerships between public authorities and civil society. Hence, it holds the advantage that social actors can jointly elaborate innovative and creative public policy solutions, to respond to real needs and situations and thus enjoy a large support basis amid the citizens.
