Keepin touch

Whether you have a question, comment, suggestion or any problem in the purview of the government, send us your message and we will try to respond as soon as possible. If your problem is not in our purview, we will forward your message to the relevant institution.

The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Poverty in Serbia halved from 2002 to 2007

Belgrade, 29 November 2007

Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic and Director of the Western Balkans Directorate at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Enlargement Pierre Mirel opened today the 3rd National Conference on Poverty Reduction.

Pierre Mirel and Bozidar Djelic

Author: Fonet

Djelic stressed that in 2007, 6.6% of Serbia’s population is poor and added that poverty has been halved in the period 2002–2007, thanks to the implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy.

According to him, the final poverty line for this year is RSD 8,883 monthly per consumer unit.

The poverty line includes other costs apart from food (clothes, shoes, hygiene, household furniture, health and education costs). Therefore, a person is considered to be poor if their monthly spending per consumer unit is less than RSD 8,883, which means that the minimum monthly spending for a three-member family should be RSD 19,543. Around 6.6% of citizens spend less than that, and according to this, around 490,000 Serbian citizens are poor, said Djelic.

He said that according to this methodology, 13.4% of citizens in Serbia were classified as poor in 2002 since their spending per consumer unit was below the poverty line which stood at RSD 5,234 monthly per consumer unit.

Serbian citizens living outside towns are considerably poorer than town residents. The poverty index of rural population is almost 2.5 times higher than that of urban population (4.3% against 9.7%), and by almost 50% higher than the average index of the entire population, emphasised the Deputy Prime Minister.

He said that central Serbia has the largest number of poor people and 8.4% of people living in central Serbia are in the category of the poor.

Citizen categories most frequently found in the poor category in 2007 are uneducated population (without elementary education, or only with that level), children up to 13 years of age, families with six and more members and aging and rural households, explained Djelic.

By years of age, children below 13 and the elderly over 65 years of age stand apart because 8.9% of children of this age and 9.5% of the elderly over 65 are poverty stricken, he said.

Djelic added that unemployment is the basic cause of poverty and is mostly the result of low educational structure of working family members. Increase in the employment rate and education level of breadwinners would lead to a reduction of poverty.

Poverty was analysed on the basis of results of a survey on living standards carried out by the Serbian Statistical Office in May 2007 on the sample of 5,558 households, said Djelic.

The conference is organised by the Serbian government and the Deputy Prime Minister’s team for the implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy.

The conference will assess the achieved progress in the implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy and discuss new plans composed in line with recommendations defined by the second report on the implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy, adopted by the government this August. The latest data on poverty in 2007 will also be presented.

Representatives of all relevant institutions and organisations taking part in the strategy implementation process, such as line ministries and other state institutions, representatives of local authorities, Serbian parliament, civil society, unions and international donors will participate in the conference.

Experiences of neighbouring countries in fighting poverty will be presented by participants from Slovenia, Hungary and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Apart from participants from Serbia, the gathering will be addressed by British Ambassador to Serbia Stephen Wordsworth, Director of the World Bank Office in Serbia Simon Grey, Permanent UN Coordinator for Serbia Lance Clark and Director of the European Anti-Poverty Network Fintan Farrell.