Abstract
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Relevance of the issue. Over the last twenty years there have been a number of European initiatives and Roma integration documents adopted, while the nation states, including Bulgaria have expressed their political will to handle this process. In the opinion of a number of researchers, civil rights activists and Roma activists, however, the integration of the Roma people has not been realized yet. There are new realities, problems and challenges in place, which call for reconsideration and change of the existing policies and approaches with the integration of the Roma ethnic group. Europe is now searching for successful practices, models and approaches for the integration of the Roma people, so that it can promote and multiply them through its new policy for Roma integration.
Subject of analysis and assessment in the proposed paper are the opportunities for creating efficient partnerships between the local authorities and the Roma community in the process of forming and implementing Roma integration policy on local level, on the basis of which is the need for further improving the relationship and interaction of the local authorities with the Roma community.
Based on these positions there will be commentaries and assessments proposed on issues related to: the latest trends, problems and challenges in the European and national policy, as well as in the Roma integration programmes, which concern the empowerment of the local authorities in view of checking the relevance of the municipal programme documents and creating conditions for their application; the specific reasons and factors, preventing the inclusion on an equal standing of the Roma people in the Bulgarian society on national and local level; the consistency between the goals of the Roma policy on a local level and the results and benefits generated by it; the main forms, mechanisms and instruments of the interaction and partnership between the local authorities and the Roma community; the directions for the follow-up policies, decisions and measures.
Practical applicability: A toolset will be proposed for improving the interaction between the local authority and the Roma community, accompanied by conceptual approaches and standards, specific recommendations, measures and indicators for its application. Through the value of the indicators, it will be possible to assess the degree of reaching the set objectives and the achieved concrete results in the implementation of the municipal policies for Roma inclusion. The proposed toolset is a result from the work of the authors of the paper on several projects related to the Roma integration, where its practical applicability and usefulness have been confirmed.
Research methods: critical analysis of scientific literature, of normative, strategic and programme documents; problem analysis of the results from the practice-applied researches and analytical papers, comparative analysis and assessment of results from sociological and author’s surveys; the method of defining the policies on the basis of the desired future results („back-casting).
The data which shall be analyzed refer to: the dynamics of the socio-economic and demographic indicators for the situation of the Roma community on national and municipal level, kept at the National Statistical Institute; information about „good” and „bad” integration policies and practices, available in municipal programme documents and reports with an emphasis on education, employment and economic development, public works and housing policy, public order and citizens’ rights; the possibilities for resource provision of the integration policies.
Target groups which will benefit from the research: public authorities on national and local level; directors, civil servants and experts in municipal administrations; civil society structures working on the issues of the Roma inclusion; Roma organizations and Roma leaders; educational institutions, etc.
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