A working group in charge of developing Strategy for Social Protection Development of Irig Municipality completed its work after six months period. Group was consisted of representatives of local institutions and organisations such as local Department for social affairs, Centre for social work, Red Cross, Youth Office, as well as primary and vocational high schools. A project team of NGO Help Net was able to co-ordinate the entire process and provide an expert support thanks to the grant which this organisation received within the joint action of the European Union and the Council of Europe “Promotion of diversity and equality in Serbia”.

According to data available in this strategic document, over ten thousand of citizens live in a multi-national environment of Irig municipality. Local Centre for social work reports that there were 1,408 registered users of social protection in 2020, which is by 74 more compared to 2019 when 1,334 users were registered. This means that more than 10 per cent of total local population is recorded by the Centre.

Having in mind results of the situation analysis, position of citizens in the area of social protection in this municipality and following valid national documents in this area, five priority target groups were identified in the Strategy such as: 1) elderly population, 2) persons with dissabilities, 3) children and youth, 4) victims of domestic violence and 5) economically disadvantaged individuals.

Therefore, the vision of this Strategy is that Municipality of Irig becomes a socially sensible local self-government which has fully developed mechanisms of citizens' support and created systemic responses to all challenges citizens face.

In order to achieve this vision, five specific objectives defined in the Strategy will need to be achieved in next five years, as follows:

• to develop availability and efficiency of existing and establish new social protection services;
• improve working conditions in the Centre for social work as a parent institution established within the social protection system;
• to develop co-operation with civil society organisations and business sector;
• to work on strengthening solidarity between citizens of Irig;
• to improve existing and develop new forms of cooperation between institutions within the social protection system as well as cross-sectoral forms of cooperation;

Strategy proposal was made publicly available by Municipality of Irig to enable citizens to give comments and suggestions in the period 15-30 October, while its adoption is planned for the last quarter of this year.

A team in charge of monitoring implementation of the Strategy will be established upon its adoption. Members of the team will be appointed by institutions responsible for implementation of specific measures defined in this document and, in addition to monitoring, their tasks will also include document's revision when needed as well as drafting action plans for specific objectives and reports on their implementation.

More information about the process of drafting this strategic document are available here.