On 21 October 2025, in the Palace of Serbia in Belgrade, the European Union (EU) and Council of Europe (CoE) Roma Integration III Joint Programme and the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue of Serbia, conducted a training session to introduce the Digital Platform for Monitoring the implementation of the Strategy for Social Inclusion of Roma in Serbia 2022-2030. Participants of the training were 70 representatives of 43 local self-governments in Serbia.

The platform is a tool designed to support authorities in monitoring progress, assessing indicators, and planning effective policies for Roma inclusion. By enabling data-driven decision-making, it strengthens the implementation of strategic documents and ensures alignment with the specific needs of Roma communities.

In the opening speech during the training, the Assistant Minister Simona Popovic stated that this meeting was of great importance for the implementation of one of the key recommendations from the Progress Report, according to which Serbia needs to show, through data collection, real improvements in the exercise of the rights of national minorities, including the obligations from the Poznan Declaration related to Roma inclusion.

The training was an opportunity to present and discuss the content of the monitoring platform. These activities are implemented as institutional capacity building for data collection and monitoring within the framework of the joint programme of the CoE and the EU "Roma Integration III".

During the training, participants explored the platform’s functionalities and gained practical insights into its application for monitoring and policy planning. In addition to this, the participants used the opportunity to share examples of good practices in data collection, as well as to discuss the challenges they are facing in monitoring and reporting about the implementation of social inclusion measures on local level.

The Digital Platform will improve the monitoring process, as well as the possibilities for planning measures based on reliable data at the local level. The initiative contributes to building the capacity of local self-governments, fostering greater transparency, accountability, and efficiency in Roma policy implementation.