Supporting Serbia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy
- Dynamic and inclusive economic growth, focusing on job creation and higher personal income within a more competitive private sector;
- Prevention of new poverty by enabling people at risk to take advantage of new job opportunities;
- Maintaining and improving care for the most vulnerable groups, particularly in the least developed regions, through efficient delivery of both existing and new services.
Since 2003 DFID, together with other donors, has supported PRS development and implementation. The current assistance, which is scheduled to continue until the end of 2008, is focused on speeding up the implementation of PRS objectives by key line ministries, and supporting moves towards institutionalising more effective government planning systems.
Through DFID assistance this project supports process of decentralisation by making new pro/poor policy recommendations understandible and applicable at the local level. The project also contributes to building of more accountable government by inclusion of civil society organisations in process of creation, monitoring and reporting on the Government of Serbia work on poverty reduction.
Success story
Halving poverty in Serbia
Six years ago, 11% of people in Serbia lived below the national poverty line - which amounts to less than £80 a month on which to live. Nowadays, this proportion has nearly halved (to 6.6%) thanks largely to the implementation of the Serbian Government’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). However, another 30% of the population are still at risk of falling into poverty, and keep the Government very much focused on the issue.
Poverty reduction is one of the UK’s central aims in Serbia and since 2003 DFID, together with other donors, has supported PRSP development and implementation. The PRSP has three key objectives: inclusive economic growth (i.e. more jobs), preventing new poverty due to ongoing transitional reform and improving services for vulnerable social groups. The result so far has been a number of pro-poor policies being set up in many of the country’s ministries and municipal administrations.
One topic that receives special attention in the PRSP is that of education, since a prime group amongst the country’s poor consists of citizens with low educational standards. Traditionally, the story of education and poverty in Serbia has been one of reluctance, both on the part of the Government and amongst the poorest citizens themselves, to bring about change. People from the Roma community are particularly affected, and in one municipality (Ada), the last Roma to have finished high school did so in 1985.
The case of Ada
In response to its educational situation, Ada's municipal Poverty Reduction Committee, in cooperation a local NGO, decided to improve opportunities for all children, through its 'Equal Chances' project.
The main goal of Equal Chances has been regular school attendance of all children, especially Roma. So before school, children identified as being at risk meet at a day centre and with the help of two assistants are sent to school properly dressed, clean and with the necessary books. After school, the children return to the centre, and are supervised by eight teachers and tutors to have lunch and engage in homework, study or other school activities.
Over the course of five years, 73 children from poor families of all ethnic backgrounds have been helped to finish primary education. Some of these children never before attended primary school, or due to a large number of absent days, reached the 4th or 5th grade practically illiterate. Of these 73 children, eight have progressed to enroll for secondary school.
“If it weren't for the project, I probably would not be going to the Medical School today,” says Denis, whose ambition is to become a medical practitioner. “I had dropped out of school twice because we did not have money. But since I joined the Equal Chances project, I have been finishing one year after another.” Having won second place in the Health Care Team Competition, Denis is preparing for the Republic Anatomy Competition.
About the PRSP
Serbia’s PRSP was developed with the ultimate goal of halving poverty in Serbia by 2010. The PRSP has been the product of work undertaken by ministries, private businesses, municipalities, NGOs and international donors and was developed through a process that relied on the participation of more than 4,000 individuals.
Poverty reduction team in Ada municipality with the youngest beneficiaries of their social inclusion project