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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Fund for Social Innovations to finance local projects

Belgrade, 4 May 2005

The Serbian Assistant Minister of Labour, Employment and Social Policy Vladimir Ilic said today that a new competition for financing local projects announced by the Fund for Social Innovations will be open until June 1, 2005.

Ilic said at the press conference that projects must come from the field of social care and be submitted by a consortium consisting of two or more legal entities.

The consortium must include at least one institution of social care and one non-governmental organisation, Ilic explained. In addition, the consortium may also include the local self-government, a public company from the local level or a private company.

The projects submitted must be clear, very precise and sustainable and must offer innovative services in the field of social care or solutions for development and improvement of existing ones.

The Assistant Minister of Labour said that reform in Serbia's social care system will be carried out over the next four years. The text of the reform strategy will be completed soon, and he said following that it will undergo six months of public debate before being forwarded to the government for adoption.

The Fund for Social Innovations is part of the Ministry’s program realised through cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with the support of the European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR) and the Norwegian government, which is taking part in social policy reform by financing local projects.

At the first competition, the Fund approved 88 projects out of 399 applicants. The overall value of the projects was 124 million dinars and implementation occurred in 59 municipalities in Serbia. €1.3 million is available for the second competition, of which €900,000 has been secured from the EAR and €400,000 from the Republic of Serbia.

Apart from Assistant Minister Vladimir Ilic, speakers at the conference included UNDP Permanent Representative to Serbia-Montenegro Rastislav Vrbenski, head of EAR office to Serbia Adriano Martins and First Secretary of the European Commission's Delegation to Serbia-Montenegro David Hudson.