Description
According to statistics, Romania is the EU country that allocates the lowest percentage of GDP 14.1% for social security, of which only 0.3% for social services. A serious problem is the loopholes of legislation regarding the financing and contracting of social services. The project aims to influence the public policy of funding the social services through active participation of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to create a favorable operating framework and financing of social services. It is expected to improve the cooperation between NGOs and authorities and to develop a mechanism of sustainable funding. 25 NGOs representatives will be trained in advocacy field. A position document resulted from 15 workshops at national level will be promoted through an online petition, a national advocacy campaign, lobbying initiatives, events such as the social services forum, and a national conference. Through the project will increase the visibility of NGOs among at least 100 authorities and institutions and among 30,000 citizens. Based on exchange experience with Norway a benchmarking document regarding the two social assistance systems will be created.
Summary of project results
The project "NGOs stronger together!” came as a response to the need of NGOs to increase their capacity to influence the public policies for funding social services. At the Social Services Forum participants developed a position statement in which they asked the government to speed up the regulation of transparent allocation mechanism to finance the social services offered by NGOs to vulnerable groups. After the national consultations, a policy paper was drafted with concrete proposals on sustainable, efficient and transparent financing of social services, submitted directly to 52 stakeholders. In order to increase support by the general public a petition was launched online and offline. The petition was promoted in the outdoor event "A million stars" organized simultaneously in 54 towns across the country, gathering 21,208 signatures. By monitoring the public policies and legislation in the social sector, data and information were systematically collected and disseminated through newsletters to a database of 2,500 contacts. Exchange of experience with partner Caritas Norway has strengthened bilateral relations between civil society organizations from Romania and Norway and resulted in a comparative analysis report on provision and funding of social services in Norway and Romania. The final conference "The social services - where to? Vision on the financial sustainability of social services in Romania", held in Bucharest, was attended by 114 representatives of NGOs, central and local authorities, and enjoyed international participation from Norway and Caritas Europe. A positive effect of the advocacy campaign, developed within the project, is that social services were included as eligible activities under operational projects financed from EU structural funds in the period 2015-2020.
Summary of bilateral results
Caritas Norway contributed to the achievement of project results by organising the working visit to Norway of Romanian delegation and by creating opportunities for meetings and exchanges with representatives of NGOs in Norway and other stakeholders from central and local authorities involved in the formulation of public policies. The visit in Oslo included visiting civil society organisations and discussions with officials of the social welfare system. The experience exchange has helped to strengthen bilateral relations in order to obtain a deeper knowledge of how the two countries respond to demands for social assistance. Also, Norwegian interlocutors understood the challenges faced by NGOs in Romania and provided examples and possible solutions based on their experience. These recommendations were included in the comparative report Norway - Romania, which was printed in 500 copies and was disseminated to NGOs, government agencies, public institutions in Romania. Subsequently to the visit in Oslo, the promoter received the visit in Bucharest of one of the visited organizations - Church Aid Norway - and they explored together a possible partnership for the development of social projects. Another activity which strengthened the partnership was the preparation and delivery by Caritas Norway of a training course on advocacy and lobbying for social services which was organized in Bucharest and was attended by the representatives of 26 NGOs active in the social field. At the final conference, Caritas Norway's representative gave a presentation about the partnership and exchange of experience between Romania and Norway, which included some reflections on the importance of developing a system of social services based on respect of human rights. Partner's representative was accompanied by a member of the Christian Democratic Party serving in the Oslo City Council who spoke at the conference about the cooperation between civil society organisations and political parties to shaping social policies in Norway.