WEB engleska verzija end.indd - UNDP Croatia

CHAPTER 4KEY CHALLENGESapproach to development (UNDP, 2006b). In thecase of the Roma, putting an end to discriminationin the labour market is an essential first step towardschallenging the Roma’s ‘asymmetrical’ relationshipwith social welfare. Above all, a focus on investmentsin education and housing is crucial. For Serbianreturnees, there is a need to emphasise a humanrights approach and to consider legal pre-conditionsfor inclusion as a priority.- Institutionalised populations: In part becauseof the less dramatic situation found in Croatiacompared to, for example, Bulgaria and Romania,there is a danger of failing to respond to the structuralexclusion of various institutionalised populationsin Croatia (such as, children without parental care,children with disabilities, adults with disabilities, andjuvenile and adult offenders). Institutionalisation,in some cases, appears to produce exclusion as itinvolves segregation from family and other support,often in remote settings. Moreover, those who leaveinstitutions are not prepared for re-integration orinclusion in society. A wholesale commitment tonew forms of community care is needed. Again, thisneeds to be tied to area-based assessments of needand the provision of more ‘intermediate’ resourcesto avoid over-reliance, either on costly institutionalcare or on unsupported and over stretched familycare (Bošnjak and Stubbs, 2006).- Older people without a pension: The latest WorldBank poverty study (World Bank, 2006) indicatesthat the risk of poverty increases with age. Elderlyheaded households face a poverty risk twice thatof the general population. A higher risk is facedby households headed by females aged 65+ andby female single-resident households. Withinhouseholds headed by elderly people, those whodo not receive pensions are particularly vulnerable,facing a poverty risk more than five times the nationalaverage. The World Bank study shows that no lessthat 62% of those aged 65+ who do not receive apension are in poverty, compared to 19% of thosein the same age group who do receive a pension.Chapter 3.1 suggests that one-fifth the populationover 65 (131 414 people) do not receive a pension.The case for introducing some kind of ‘social pension’appears to be very strong in Croatia. It is obvious thatolder people are not a homogenous group – while aminority is in a relatively good position, the majorityis made up of a number of different, highly excluded,sub-groups. The focus groups survey also showsthat assistance to older people with low incomescould, to a considerable extent, be realized throughmeasures which would lower costs for medical andrelated services.4.3 Geography of Exclusion andRegional InequalitiesUntil recently, there was very little accurate informationon the extent of regional inequality in Croatia.However, a number of recent studies have begun toproduce a rather consistent, and somewhat worrying,picture of spatially concentrated disadvantage,although much of this is still pitched at the level oflarger regions and counties, with municipal leveland neighbourhood data almost completely lacking.County level data shows the need for a set ofdevelopment indicators rather than only using GDPper capita. Supplementing the World Bank tableswith UNDP Quality of Life survey data (UNDP, 2006a)indicates that there are links between per capita GDPand levels of social exclusion (see Table 9). While theWorld Bank report emphasises that the bottom fivecounties in terms of per capita GDP is not correlatedespecially with income or consumption poverty, itdisplays a stronger correlation with social exclusion.According to the UNDP survey, three of the countieswith the highest levels of social exclusion are alsoamong those with the lowest per capita GDP. Anotherway of reading Table 9 is to consider that 12 of 21counties appear in the bottom five in at least one ofthe six indicators, with two counties, Osijek-Baranja140