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Swiss PRO
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News / Actualities

Switzerland’s Support to Improving the Status of Vulnerable Groups in Serbia

  • Belgrade, 17 July 2019

The Swiss Government will support seven cities and municipalities in Serbia in implementing social innovation projects in partnership with civil society organisations through the Swiss PRO Programme. These projects aim at improving access to rights and fulfilment of needs of up to 600 citizens belonging to vulnerable groups.

The support, worth €85,000, will be used to improve access to public services in the fields of health care and social protection and create better conditions for the empowerment and greater social inclusion of vulnerable groups in Vlasotince, Novi Pazar, Ćuprija, Negotin, Smederevo, Ivanjica and Raška.

“The projects will aim to extend the requisite support to vulnerable groups, especially persons with disabilities, the elderly, youths and Roma; we expect that the status of over 1,000 people will be improved in some aspects by the end of their implementation,” Swiss PRO Programme Officer for Social Inclusion Nataša Ivanović underlined.

The projects were selected within a public Call for Proposals entitled “New Ideas for Local Communities”, which was open from 13 April to 20 May 2019. Sixteen cities and municipalities in the Šumadija and Western Serbia and the Southern and Eastern Serbia regions, which had previously been extended technical support to improve their procedures and regulations on defining public interest and funding local projects implemented by civil society organisations, were eligible to apply.

“Through this Swiss PRO activity, the Swiss Government is also facilitating the building of the local self-governments’ capacity as they will implement or actively participate in all processes to ensure that the achieved results have long-term effects. We have no doubts about the sustainability of these projects given that they were proposed on the basis of previously identified public interest priorities and in compliance with the principle on the participation of all relevant local actors and the general public,” said Swiss PRO National Programme Manager Ana Nedeljković Belja.


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