Strategic Partnership for Monitoring and Evaluation of Roma Programs

This activity of our association is carried out on the basis of a partnership that Nevo Parudimos has with the European network ERGO and involves several activities aimed especially at respecting Roma rights and increasing their participation in community decision making.

Within this collaboration, the Nevo Parudimos Association continued în 2018 the type of activities started in 2017:

The Roma Forum I meeting (26-28 July – Bucharest) with the theme ”Networking and partnership building between Roma NGO’s to promote the CLLD”. More than 20 Roma NGO’s participated to the meeting and 26 persons were present during the 2 days. In the same time, officials from National Roma Agency, FEDER, Roma Party, Roma lavyers NGO, National Federations of LAGs, World Bank representatives of Roma Education Fund, had presentations and tackled Roma issues in open and free discussions. At the end we discussed about ARESEL protest and we joined the Roma from the protest. It was a two days meeting organized in partnership with FEDER where we discussed about the potential cooperation between the Roma NGO’s. Also, we talked about future activities for 2018 of the ROMA Forum network, and we shared our working plans and agreed on common activities in the future. In the first day Mr. Daniel Radulescu made a presentation of the activity of National Roma Agency. Also, Nicoleta Bitu, the president of FEDER introduced her vision about common activities and cooperation for the benefit of the Roma.

Ms. Raluca Dumitrescu (replacing Mr. Valeriu Capraru) the vice-president of the National Federation of the LAGS also presented the status of the implementation of Local Development Strategies in rural areas in Romania underlining the low capacity of the local NGO’s which create problems also for the LAG’s teams in the implementation process of the Local Development Strategy.

Afterwards, Mr. Ciprian Necula presented the activity of the Roma Sounding Board from World Bank and the Aresel campaign and Mr Iulian Paraschiv presented the partnership and cooperation from the point of view of the Roma party in Romania. Also, Mr. Eugen Ghita, representing the Roma lawyers NGO, presented how we can react from the legal point of view to forced eviction and discrimination against Roma.

After the presentations we had an open discussion about future actions of the Network, how we can identify funds to capacitate the local NGO’s to understand the CLLD process and about the Aresel protest.

The Roma Forum II (23-25 november – Bucharest) was a working meeting in order to tackle several issues underlined in the meeting Agenda: the situation on National Roma Strategies, the involvement of Roma NGO’s for Romanian Presidency of the EU in 2019, Roma NGO’s and finance oportunities, youth roma involvement within the roma movement. More then 30 Roma NGO’s participated to the meeting and over 35 persons were present during the 2 days. To the meeting also took part officials from National Roma Agency, National Center for Roma Culture, FEDER, Roma Party, National Federations of Urban LAGs, World Bank, representatives of Romanian Found for Social Development.
Also, in 2018 we implemented some local case studies. After making some interviews and two focus groups we made a complex report describing the Roma situation from Mociur community. The report was presented during the Resita LAG meeting.
We organised one training at Băile Herculane, between 9-11 november. 20 people were trained to work, communicate and cooperate better with Roma NGO’s and Roma community members. 6 NGO’s and 4 LAG’s and Roma individuals were trained during this first training. Nevo Parudimos team was assisted by Ionela Gorgan from LAG Banat-Vest.
Another training took place in Oradea, between 27-29 november when 20 people were trained to work, communicate and cooperate better with Roma NGO’s and Roma community members. Also, 5 NGO’s and 6 LAG’s teams representatives were trained during the second training. To this training, Nevo Parudimos team had the support of Maria Turtureanu from LAG Țara Oașului.
Another important activity that Nevo Parudimos worked for was the translation of antigypsyism reference paper into Romanian.
Also, Nevo Parudimos, in partnership with the National Federation of LAGS from Rural areas wrote a recommendation paper for all Romanian and EU institutions responsible with funding and requested for the following programming period 10% from all the funds for CLLD. In this way, we attracted the attention about the importance of CLLD principles in implementing activities with EU money and ask to increase the funds for this.
Nevo Parudioms participated to: ”ESF Transnational Platform – 8th Inclusion TN meeting, between 20-21 September 2018, in Madrid.

The key messages that can be extracted from the work done in 2018 are:

To develop the Roma civil society in Rural Areas in order to become more active at local and regional level and become equal partners for the LAG’s.
The Coalition (National Working Group) to be operational and function aiming to make lobby and advocacy for Roma communities.
The new LEADER program period to have the Roma more visible in all levels as partners, decision makers and beneficiary.
The use of EU funds for Roma inclusion to be made with a better qualitative impact and constant qualitative monitoring.
The members of the NWG to have the capacities to react responding to policy makers with evidence based advocacy.
To respect CLLD principles in the implementation of all the funds.
To increase the cooperation and networking between Roma NGO’s for a better impact at local level.

The most important conclusions and lessons learned from the action are:

There is a need to inform and to capacitate the Roma civil society in order to be able to become a real dialog partner for the LAG’s in order to increase the involvement of the Roma in the implementing process of the LDS. There must be underlined the principles of transparency in the funding opportunities and of the relevant information.
There is a need to work on the implementation of the CLLD principles and how they understand those principles for the increasing quality of life of the Roma communities of the rural/ urban areas. All our participants to the CLLD related trainings underline the fact that the informations received and the opportunity to meet with the representatives of the Roma community were very useful. Unfortunately, the Roma communities are still hard to get and the principle to work with them is still up to down.
The National meeting and also the local meetings with the teams of the LAG’s were considered a success because both the national bodies and the local actors need a more strong and organized voice of the Roma community. The implemented training trajectory that will follow during July will give the framework of connected and working together for better life.

Networking and cooperation between Roma civil society and the different national structures it’s crucial. We need to insist on this and try to improve the cooperation between the local and the Central represented NGO’s.

The project is funded through FRAMEWORK PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT DG EMPL N. VS/2017/0468

Disclaimer

This communication reflects only the views of the author and the fund operator can not be held responsible for the use of the information contained therein.