Indicator history

The new Strategy for the Roma has just been adopted (at the end of 2011, through Government Decision 1.221/2011). The previous Strategy, covering the period 2001-2010 has been evaluated by several actors, but no comprehensive state driven evaluation and involving all relevant state monitoring mechanisms at its end has been made. The last existing evaluation, from 2009, concluded among others:

-         the Strategy has created a Roma elite;

-         the implementation mechanism was created (but in many cases moreover as formal mechanisms);

-         the actors involved do not have decision making power in order to solve problems

-         at local level, authorities do not know very well the legislation regarding the Roma, few know of the Strategy;

-         there is a lack of expertise and specific experts often missing in communities (school and health mediators);

-         despite a series of projects in some communities to improve living standards, the gap as compared to the majority population is huge;

-         lack of financing for housing and lack of own budgets for Roma County Offices. [1]

In general, lack of budgeting was one of the main problems. A series of NGOs which made comments to the draft of the new Strategy asked for a comprehensive evaluation of the previous Strategy, criticizing the fact that many of the malfunctioning aspects had been again taken over. [2]

No evaluation of previous strategies on migration could be identified (the new one, covering the period 2011-2014 having been adopted through Government Decision 498/2011 ).

Sources:

1. “Impreuna” Agency for community Development, The national Strategy for improving the situation of the Roma: voice of the communities, 2009, pp. 78-79, available at: http://www.agentiaimpreuna.ro/files/publicatii/Strategia_nationala_imbunatatire.pdf (Date of access: 12.03.2012); see also, Focus Consultancy, Assessment of the Roma Strategy Implementation Mechanism, available at: http://www.anr.gov.ro/docs/rapoarte/Focus_Final_Evaluation_Report_181.pdf (Date of access: 12.03.2012) and Open Society Foundations and Resource Centre for Roma Communities, Monitoring the Local Implementation of the Government Strategy for the Improvement of the Condition of Roma, 2004, available at: http://www.soros.org/initiatives/roma/articles_publications/publications/romap_20040927 (Date of access: 12.03.2012)

2. NGO proposals for the amendment of the draft Romanian Government strategy for the inclusion of Romanian citizens belonging to the Roma minority for the period 2011-2020, available at: http://www.romanicriss.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=359&Itemid=34 (Date of access: 12.03.2012)