Institute Alternative organized a round table on the topic of “Challenges of Developing Combined Social Policy in Montenegro – Experience of Croatia”. The round table is a first step in implementing the project entitled ‘Challenges of Developing Combined Social Policy in Montenegro.’
The goal of this project is to stimulate the development of combined social policy with an emphasis on developing civil society as an important actor of social reforms and decentralization of the social security system.
Prof. dr. sc Gojko Bežovan, professor at the social policy department of the Law Faculty in Zagreb, addressed the round table by introducing the experience and results of the development of social policy in Croatia.
Prof. dr. sc Gojko Bežovan is also the president of the Center for development of NGOs – CERANEO. This think-tank works on gathering, analyzing and researching problems in the area of social policy, thereby stimulating innovative approach to their resolution.
Participants of the round table included representatives of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, local self-government units, private and public institutions of social security, NGOs dealing with various social issues, UNDP and the Institute for Strategic Studies and Prognoses.
The current reform process in the social security system embraces the principles of developing social policy in general, which involve joint activities of all relevant social actors in Montenegro, their mutual cooperation and coordination, strengthening the role of local communities, privatization of social services, stimulating the development of social enterprises and engaging recipients of protective measures and social transfers, whose role in positive legislation is entirely passive.
The next phase of the project is research-based, aiming to provide an objective assessment of the level of cooperation established among all social policy actors in Montenegro, and to indicate current problems, as well as the possibilities of overcoming them. Participants of the round table gave their full support to the project and expressed their readiness to contribute to its implementation.
