BIM Annual Report 2008 - Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für ...

Human Rights in Development and Business BIM Annual Report 2008
Human Rights and Poverty Reduction in Macedonia
Summary
The project “Human Rights and Poverty Reduction in Macedonia” was aimed at piloting the Office of
the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights’ “Principles and Guidelines for a Human Rights Approach
to Poverty Reduction Strategies“. Using a bottom-up approach, project activities on local level
fed into the work on national level.
On local level capacities of the local governments and important actors were strengthened in order to
include the vulnerable and poor in the elaboration of local development strategies. To this end, project
activities included performing a baseline study on poverty in the seven selected pilot municipalities,
elaborating a set of tools for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the organisation of
trainings and workshops on the elaborated tools, the organisation of Peer Discussion Groups with the
representatives of the most marginalised social groups, as well as funding micro-projects to ensure the
implementation of the Human Rights Based Approach in the elaboration of local development plans. In
the project’s final year the local development plans in two remaining pilot municipalities were finalised
and printed, and in all municipalities the micro-projects were successfully concluded.
On central level the BIM has successfully facilitated technical assistance for the first phase of the
elaboration of the Joint Inclusion Memorandum (JIM). This strategic document referring to the main
challenges and political measures related to poverty and social exclusion has to be elaborated by the
Macedonian government (through the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy) within the EU accession
process. The BIM closely cooperated with the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy and ensured the
participation of over a hundred civil society organizations into consultations on the content of this
document. Within the EU accession processes, this was the first time mechanisms and indicators for
human rights relevant poverty reduction and enhanced social inclusion have been developed in a participatory
manner. As the result of this process, the publication “On the Path to EU: A Contribution of
the Civil Society Sector in the Creation of the Policy of Social Inclusion in the Republic of Macedonia“
was presented in October 2008.
Country
Persons
involved
Macedonia
Coordination Barbara Kühhas (until July 2008)
Christine Sommer (since August 2008)
Project Manager
Local Human Rights Expert
Junior Local Human Rights
Expert
Administration
Filippo Unterhofer
Ninoslav Mladenovic
Mirije Sulmati
Jagoda Strasevska
National experts have contributed in the fields of Children, Disability, Elderly, Gender,
Health, Minorities and Roma.
Contact person
Christine Sommer, christine.sommer@univie.ac.at
Lead
organisation
Ludwig Boltzmann Institute
of Human Rights –
Research Association
Partner
organisation
United Nations Development
Programme Macedonia
Starting/
end date
August 2006 to October 2008
Funded by
Austrian Development Agency (ADA)
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