International perspectives on positive action measures - European ...

counts the historical discrimination
which has created the need for positive
action measures. In Slovakia, even
positive action provisions in the Anti-
Discrimination Act refer to positive
action allowed on the basis of social
disadvantage. Data protection concerns
make it difficult to officially
monitor and evaluate the impact of
positive action measures for Roma.
Positive action measures targeting
Roma in Hungary and Slovakia can be
clearly and overwhelmingly linked to
social policy on Roma inclusion, and
only very recently to law-enabling
positive action. Most programmes
are housed within the government
strategy on the Decade of Roma Inclusion.
The early national strategies
for improving the situation of Roma
and their financing are also linked to
this government strategy. Thus, government
policy can be seen to drive
positive action affecting Roma in
both Hungary and Slovakia, while at
the same time strangely limiting it.
The linking of positive action for Roma
to government policy also clearly
leads to discontinuity in programmes,
which end before the overall goals
have been achieved. This reflects the
negative impact of changing government
policy on real improvement resulting
from positive action measures
(especially those implemented by the
public and voluntary sectors). Most
measures considered to be positive
action for Roma in Hungary and Slovakia
are explicitly linked to tenders
and projects, which are time-limited
and not necessarily renewed (in fact,
often not). Many are financed by the
government (and these sources also
change with policy shifts), but also
by private foundations, which also
have changing priorities driving the
types of programmes implemented.
This is true to a lesser extent in the
private sector, where positive action
measures are supported by company
resources, although positive action in
the private sector appeared to be less
prevalent.
In both Hungary and Slovakia, there
was significant discussion on the negative
reaction by non-Roma to these
programmes, which are perceived
to benefit Roma only (as opposed
to wider society). This reflects both
widespread negative and prejudiced
attitudes towards Roma in both countries,
but also a lack of understanding
of positive action in general. The
negativity can be linked to severe deficiencies
in information campaigns
and awareness-raising on positive action
in both countries (which is also a
quite new concept in both countries).
In both Hungary and Slovakia, it can be
seen that while complex programmes
are needed to make adequate improvements
in the situation of Roma,
this is not what is implemented in reality.
Isolated programmes exist which
may bring improvement in one area,
but which in the end bring negative
results in other areas (see case study
for housing schemes in the country
report for Hungary) because the full
consequences of the programme were
not thought through adequately.
In terms of monitoring of these
projects, many implementers of positive
action for Roma in Hungary
were unclear how to measure their
impact. Indeed, a number of programmes
were not measured in any
systematic way, except where specifically
required by the fact that many
programmes implemented by local
authorities in Hungary target socially
disadvantaged groups rather than
Roma specifically. The most successful
positive action measure in Slovakia so
far was thought to be the programme
of Roma teaching assistants, which
received the highest support in terms
of being a successful programme,
mainly because it has existed for several
years and some progress in the
area of education is visible.
4. Perceptions of positive action in the Europe Union
The majority of countries did not discuss
future plans for positive action,
which might in part be explained by
the fact that within the workshops we
did not ask them explicitly about their
intentions to continue or develop.
Findings from the interviews, however,
suggested that organisations were
keen to learn about best practices and
to receive suggestions on evaluation
of positive action measures initiatives
already in existence. Notably, in Sweden,
some organisations talked about
enlarging the scale of their activities
and expanding them to other fields
and other disadvantaged groups.
Some Swedish universities were keen
to include social class and sexual orientation
as part of their positive action
work but were prevented from
doing so because of resource limitations.
A number of institutions also
mentioned that, as of 2009, there
was a need to include age as an area
of concern, because of the new antidiscrimination
law, yet admitted not
to knowing how to deal with it.
In the survey, participants from the
European country with the significantly
highest response above the
overall 55 % of the study sample planning
future positive action activities
were the French at 78 %. This is surprising
considering the difficulty faced
in attempting to arrange a workshop
in France as a result of the different
perceptions of the utility of positive
action in different constituencies. The
European countries with responses
lower than the overall value in terms
of future planning for positive action
initiatives were the UK (47 %) and the
Netherlands (35 %).
To conclude, there was clear joint
opinion that only well-designed, complex,
adequately financed and participative
initiatives would bring some
significant impact to Roma populations.
Unfortunately, in reality this is
still far from the case, particularly in
Slovakia.
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