Civil Society Monitoring on the Implementation of the National Roma Integration Strategies and Decade Action Plan in the Czech Republic in 2010-2013
Monitoring report published by the coalition of Czech non-governmental organisations provides an independent assessment of the Czech Republic’s progress in achieving the goal of Roma inclusion as defined in the Concept for Roma Integration 2010-2013 that is also the National Roma Integration Strategy. The intention of this report initiated by the Decade of Roma Inclusion Secretariat Foundation is to provide additional feedback from the perspective of civic society organisations to the European Commission.
The report is divided into the six areas - education, employment, health, housing, anti-discrimination, and structural requirements. The structure reflects the decision of the Decade Secretariat to focus on the six topics analysed in European Commission´s feedback on the strategies of member states. Due to this decision, this report does not cover all the dimensions of Roma integration that are covered by the Czech Concept for Roma Integration, which also includes chapters on the support of Roma identity and culture.
The thematic chapters highlight key messages that lead to the evaluation of the Concept´s implementation and to the formulation of recommendations. In the opinion of the authors of this report, coming to terms with the successful Roma integration will be essential to draw attention to three cross-sectoral challenges – indebtedness of Roma and the costs of debts, role of municipalities in Roma integration and Roma empowerment.
Moreover, the authors demonstrate throughout the report how the hitherto applied integration strategies fail to give the Roma communities a chance to participate actively in the process of integration. One of the most important challenges for the coming years will be to develop funding mechanisms that will be more accessible for Roma and to introduce better mechanisms for the participation of Roma in decision-making.