Description
There is a large number of non-citizens in Latvia, who have been living in Latvia for many years but have not had the motivation to learn the Latvian language and naturalize. The project will enhance naturalization of non-citizens and their integration in the society. The project is aimed at promoting acquisition of citizenship and dialogue with non-citizens. The planned result is research-, knowledge, and participation-based proposals for improving action policy for integration of non-citizens, as well as building dialogue among researchers, non-citizens, experts, and representatives of the State and local government institutions. The project will result in a research about the main obstacles in the naturalization process, prognoses about naturalization of non-citizens in coming 20 years. The target group of the project is non-citizens of Latvia, as well as experts, and officials of State institutions and local governments.
Summary of project results
The project was aimed to promote the process of naturalization and dialogue with non-citizens, and this is a significant target group because it is about 13% of all inhabitants in Latvia, and their political tights are very limited. The target group was Latvian non-citizens as well as experts and national authorities and municipal employees. The project was implemented in the big cities with the largest number of non-citizens - Riga, Daugavpils, Liepaja and Jelgava. The main activities and correspondingly main results of the project are: (1) RESEARCH - to gain an in-depth understanding of the barriers and motivation to naturalize or not (available both in Latvian and in English). (2) PROGNOSIS of the decline of number of non-citizens for the next 5, 10 and 20 years. (3) SOLUTIONS or suggestions how to improve policies promoting the integration of non-citizens. (4) DIALOGUE between all stakeholders in addressing the practical implementation of developed solutions. The most important results of the project are policy recommendations on how to improve the integration of non-citizens, based on research, in-depth knowledge and participation of the target group, as well as the establishment of a dialogue between researchers, non-citizens, experts, and state and local government representatives.
Summary of bilateral results