Projects

Trainings and Human Resources Development,Strategies and development programmes,

Support to social service providers and enhancement of monitoring capacities in BiH

Bosna and Herzegovina

Delegation of the European Union in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The main beneficiaries of the project will be the Ministry of Civil Affairs of BiH, the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees of BiH, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of Republika Srpska, and the Department for Health and Other Services of Brcko District. Other beneficiaries will include the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, relevant cantonal ministries, local authorities responsible for refugees and displaced persons, municipal social services providers.

The overall objective of this project is as follows: To enhance monitoring, reporting and promotion of human rights and to improve social protection of the vulnerable and socially disadvantaged groups. The purposes of this contract are as follows: (a) Develop a generic model to assist elderly and disabled persons, and to support the establishment of two mobile teams that will be providing the assistance to the two categories of beneficiaries ; (b) Strengthen primarily the capacities of the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees as well as other institutions responsible for collecting data on human rights protection in BiH. With respect to the social protection of vulnerable and socially disadvantaged categories, the project will help national and local authorities to enable greater social inclusion of vulnerable groups, with special focus on elderly, by broadening and strengthening community-based responses tailored to their specific needs. There legislative framework for reforming the social protection systems has already been adopted by the two Entities and Brcko District, but this framework does not correspond sufficiently to the development plans of social welfare system. Apart from legal shortcomings, the secondary legislation (bylaws and regulations) is incomplete or inappropriate. The project will therefore assist the BiH authorities in revising the existing secondary legislation and drafting the missing bylaws and regulations, which will improve the provision of social services. With respect to the monitoring and promotion of human rights, the project will aim at strengthening the capacities of MHRR and other institutions in charge of collecting data on human rights protection. Under various international conventions ratified by BiH so far, the MHRR has the mandate and obligation to report on human rights conditions, but the existing capacities of the Ministry are insufficiently developed for ensuring an efficient coordination, monitoring and reporting according to international requirements. At the same time, MHRR – in line with the Law against Discrimination – has the obligation to compile a database on cases of discrimination. The project will therefore support the five sectors of the IT department of MHRR to: improve the internal databases used for reporting on human rights of refugees and displaced persons; to create various forms of tailor-made reports; create a web application for making the information available on the website of the Ministry; optimisation of data collection; IT support for improving the business processes. The project will also provide capacity-building to local authorities in managing social inclusion policies, and to social services providers to design community-based social inclusion initiatives in line with the identified local needs through building local partnerships and stronger cross-sectorial networking. The uneven distribution of economic and social resources in BiH in the field of social protection policy negatively reflects on the ability of Social Welfare Centres to develop and deliver an integrated model for providing social protection services. The project will therefore assist the Centres for Social Work to develop a generic model for assisting elderly and disabled persons through the establishment of two mobile teams that will be providing assistance to elderly older than 65 years and respectively to persons under 65 years with some form of disability who are excluded from the existing schemes of social protection.

Start date: 2015-05-14

End date: 2017-10-31