Lutte contre la pauvreté en Croatie : les réalisations d’un jumelage franco-croate présentées à Zagreb

“The project primarily tried to develop efficient means of identifying social groups at risk of social exclusion, and to develop new measures that will support and assist them in their most challenging times” - Marija Pletikosa, State Secretary for Demography, Family, Youth and Social Policy pointed out. “Combating poverty and social exclusion depends on defining appropriate measures and programmes and on their efficient steering, which requires good interdepartmental coordination because combating poverty is not and cannot be the responsibly of only one body or institution and must be approached interdisciplinary”.
 

Combating poverty and social exclusion depends on defining appropriate measures
and programmes and on their efficient steering

Croatia is among the most vulnerable member states of the European Union when dealing with poverty rate. Around one fifth of Croatian citizens is at risk of poverty, i.e. in total 826,097 persons. According to the latest official data of the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, poverty rate in 2016 was 19.9%, while the average for the 28 EU member states was 17.3 % for 2015. Percentage of children under 17 years of age living at risk of poverty has surpassed the national average and has reached 20.7% in 2016.
 
“New European budget for 2021-2028 will in future continue to be a very significant investor in human resources” - Mirella Rašić, Deputy Head of the Representation of the European Commission in Croatia has said. “EU social funds are becoming an essential part of the European budget with the goal of providing the best possible conditions to all in order to completely use the chances offered by the contemporary labour market. In this sense the EU is calling on all member states to show solidarity and provide assistance to the ones most in need. Only then we can say we are working on building a competitive, sustainable and inclusive society for our citizens”.
 
“France is extremely proud of its successful implementation of this project which is being implemented under the auspices of the Ministry of Demography, Family, Youth and Social Policy” - Philippe Meunier, the French ambassador at the Republic of Croatia said. “Activities within this twinning project of the European Union that were proposed by the French agency Expertise France are a perfect addition to the existing French - Croatian bilateral cooperation in which care for young people represents one of its priorities. We sincerely hope our close cooperation with the team from the Ministry will continue after this twinning is finished”.

Three main achievements : family poverty indicators, prevention programmes, improvement of the social welfare IT system

Croatian and French representatives of the project team spoke about project achievements and about the perspective of its further implementation after its closing in July this year. Xavier Coyer from Expertise France, also the French twinning project leader; Katica Lažeta, Head of Service for social benefits, poverty prevention and coordination of social welfare centres’ work at the Ministry and Croatian RTA counterpart, and Camille Lambinon, French RTA, all provided an overview of basic project activities and presented its implementation during the last year and half.

They highlighted that the Project results were threefold. First, the project team had developed, in cooperation with experts working with children and their families - social workers, school professional service employees and doctors from Zagreb, Rijeka, Split and Osijek - family poverty indicators, relevant for Croatian population.

Ivana Lučev, Head of the project component Development of instruments for targeted provision of social services at the Ministry, presented this instrument that covers 23 objective poverty indicators divided into three categories: 1.) Characteristics of persons in the household; 2.) Income, benefits and debt and 3.) Housing conditions and household equipment. The indicators were included in the Ministry’s social welfare IT system and in the IT system of social welfare centres and they are used for measuring risk of poverty, i.e. for calculating the so - called poverty index. The formed poverty index allows quick detection of families at higher risk of poverty.

Indicators for identifying children and families at risk of poverty are planned, for now, for usage at social welfare centres. According to Lučev, “possible wider usage of indicators in schools and health institutions would allow for more effective collection of data on the distribution of poverty in Croatia”. 

Furthermore, two new prevention programmes have been developed within the Project, and they were presented by Genevieve Sempere Briand from Expertise France: field and on - line counselling for adolescents and young people (14-25 years of age) who are at risk of social exclusion; and counselling in managing family budget for families with financial difficulties. Training programmes for implementing these two programmes were also held, intended for social workers and representatives of associations from Bjelovar and Velika Gorica, Split, Karlovac and Zagreb. Kristina Novalić, Head of Bjelovar social welfare centre, addressed the implementation of the twinning project at Bjelovar social welfare centre that is, along with Velika Gorica social welfare centre, one of the two pilot social welfare centres that cooperated on this Project.        
 
Final significant achievement of the Project concerns the upgrade and improvement of the social welfare IT system. Tanja Žaja, Head of the Sector for coordination of reform processes and modernisation of the social welfare system at the Ministry has presented a new module for calculating the aforementioned poverty index; while André Dewerdt from the French National Fund for Family Benefits (CNAF) from Lyon and Andrei Tretyak from Expertise France presented other Ministry IT system upgrades which allow statistical analysis of data on beneficiaries and rights with the goal of planning social services and programmes, their monitoring and evaluation. Development of statistics and analytics should, in the end, result in planning and creating of more quality social services and programmes across Croatia.
 
Experts from different areas of work have been educated on various topics throughout this twinning project: from statistics and analytics, preparing social and action plans, development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of social programmes to cooperation mechanisms between various social service providers at the national and local levels.
 
Presented activities constitute a part of the EU project Strengthening institutional capacity in social welfare system to improve social welfare targeting and reducing poverty - worth 1,1 million Euro with the aim to strengthen institutional capacities of the social welfare system for early identification and timely provision of social services to families and children at risk of poverty. The project is being implemented by the Ministry of Demography, Family, Youth and Social Policy in cooperation with the Government of the French Republic. Expertise France, a French agency for international technical cooperation represents the implementation partner of the Project. The project is being implemented from January 2017 till July 2018.