Poverty Reduction
Through the Millennium Development Goals, the world is addressing the many dimensions of human development, including the halving by 2015 of the proportion of people living in extreme poverty. Developing countries are working to create their own national poverty eradication strategies based on local needs and priorities. UNDP advocates for these nationally-owned solutions and helps ensure their effectiveness. UNDP promotes the concept of human poverty as a complement to income poverty, emphasizing that equity, social inclusion, women's empowerment, and respect for human rights matter for poverty reduction.
Poverty Reduction in Bosnia and Herzegovina is mainstreamed trough the Country Office Social Inclusion Cluster activities mainly focused on encompassing participatory policy development and implementation to ensure inclusive and quality basic social protection and employment services, with particular focus on access and participation of socially excluded and vulnerable groups.
BACKGROUND
Although in aggregate human development terms Bosnia and Herzegovina is progressing well, social exclusion and poverty are pressing problems, with increasing inequalities of income, education and health outcomes. 2007 data suggests a poverty rate of 18.6%, with 22.9% at risk of poverty. The National Human Development Report 2007 suggests that over 50% of the population is socially excluded. Among the most vulnerable are the elderly, persons with disabilities, displaced persons, Roma, families with two or more children, unemployed and low-skilled youth.
Women are at particular risk in all categories. The quality of education and health services needs improvement and the key MTDS (The medium term development strategy) goals of benefit to the most vulnerable are only partially fulfilled. UNDP Bosnia and Herzegovina has promoted Social Inclusion as a social good, in congruence with the European Union agenda and its pre-accession framework. UNDP has supported the Government’s work on a social inclusion strategy drawing on analytic work (National HDR 2007 on Social Inclusion) and on lessons from area-based development programmes, returnee reintegration projects and initiatives in private sector development. These projects include the Srebrenica Region Recovery and the Upper Drina Development programmes, which were positively evaluated in 2008 by the Netherlands Government (the principle donor).
The Support to Sustainable Return Programme which helped 1400 families with new homes, became the model for the recently initiated return programme in Kosovo. Private sector development started with the regional Growing Sustainable Business (GSB) project and then integrated its’ activities into poverty reduction projects.
OBJECTIVES AND NATIONAL PRIORITIES
1. Initiatives within the Social Inclusion Cluster will aim to align Millennium Development Goals achievement with the EU accession agenda. The envisaged projects will support the government on state and entity levels in developing and implementing policies and practices to ensure inclusive and quality social services, housing and social protection, and employment services.
2. Specific activities will focus on social inclusion analysis, social statistics and support to census, capacity development for evidence- and rights-based policies at the Directorate for Economic Planning (DEP), as well as local level activities in the area of inter-cultural understanding as a basis for development.
3. Capacity development activities will focus on the Statistical Agencies, the DEP, the Ministry of Finance and Treasury and the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
4. Poverty reduction is kept in focus through the Area-based Development projects including tackling unemployment with strong partnerships with the private sector.
The design and implementation of projects will be done together with vulnerable groups including women, returnees, the unemployed as well as civil society, private sector, national stakeholders and donors.
RELATED MDGs
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
8. Develop a global partnership for development
OUTCOMES
Proposed programming in the area of social inclusion will support four specific development outcomes.
1. Firstly, in terms of social policies and social protection policies, the programme will support the governments on both state and entity level to develop, coordinate, monitor and report on policies which are inclusive, evidence- and rights-based. In this regard, UNDP cooperation will support the achievement of two main outputs: first, the development and implementation of laws and strategies geared towards social inclusion, including social inclusion strategies; and, the delivery by government of efficient, needs-based social services at the local level with CSO support.
2. Secondly, the social inclusion programme will support improved intercultural understanding at the local level as a basis for local and national development, and support the development of the tourism and cultural industries. To achieve this, UNDP will provide assistance to municipalities and CSOs to adopt and implement municipal policy and action plan documents in support of sustainable local economic development and poverty reduction.
3. The third outcome of the programme is the empowerment of local authorities, with civil society and the private sector to plan and implement inclusive social policies at local level, including support to youth employment. This will mainly be attained through the development of innovative employment and social programmes, and area-based interventions. As an output, partnerships will be created between the private sector and local authorities to provide a framework for economic development components and youth employment opportunities.
4. Finally, the social inclusion programme will initiate activities aimed at facilitating the creation of an enabling environment for increased employment and economic development. The outcomes will jointly contribute to the development of inclusive markets - the competitive markets that extend choices and opportunities to the poor. They will be realized by offering policy advice and capacity building support to local government on all levels. Support will also be extended to other sectors such as rural development, agriculture, income generation, civil society and private sector development. Concrete activities will include but will not be limited to promotion of investment in human capital and vocational training, enhancement of access to markets by micro producers and SMEs (Small and medium enterprises) as well as the upgrade of the current system of economic promotion, strengthening of cooperation among producers, local authorities and the state regularity institutions, building new economic value-chains, promotion of public private partnerships and support to good governance.
The Social Inclusion Cluster will establish synergy with other clusters, such as Energy and Environment, in order to underpin local development and use common resources to create sustainable jobs, particularly in regard to the activities geared towards rural development and agriculture. Possible joint actions are also foreseen in cooperation with the Human Security Cluster regarding disaster risk reduction and demining.
Related Projects