Priorities and activities to be co-financed
1. Priorities
The priority of this restricted call for proposals for action grants is to support the setting up or reinforcing of national consultation processes in the Member States, through National Roma Platforms convened and managed by National Roma Contact Points (NRCPs).
NRCPs were appointed by Member States, in line with the EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies up to 2020 (http://ec.europa.eu/justice/discrimination/files/roma_nationalcontactpoints_en.pdf) to coordinate the development and implementation of the National Roma Integration Strategy, or integrated sets of policy measures within their broader social inclusion policies (thereafter: NRIS).
The Council Recommendation on effective Roma integration measures in the Member States confirms that NRCPs should facilitate the participation and involvement of Roma civil society in the implementation of NRIS and local action plans. The National Roma Platforms will contribute decisively to this process.
The National Roma Platforms are expected to encourage and facilitate dialogue and exchanges, promote mutual learning, cooperation and involvement in implementation and monitoring, reporting and policy review between all national stakeholders. Inclusion of Roma people, in particular Roma women and youth, in the Platform is strongly encouraged.
The objectives of the Platforms are:
to empower the NRCPs in the process of Roma integration, to give them the necessary visibility towards all relevant stakeholders, whether at national, regional or local level, towards Roma and non-Roma communities;
to ensure effective involvement of all relevant stakeholders (i.e. national, regional, local authorities, Roma and non-Roma communities including Roma youth and Roma women, Roma and pro-Roma non-governmental organisations (NGOs), private entrepreneurs, trade unions, professional associations, academia, Equality bodies, etc.) in decisions that affect Roma, taking into account the roles of each stakeholder;
to improve multi-stakeholder participation, in particular participation of Roma in decisions that affect them;
to strengthen multi-stakeholder accountability, commitment to, as well as ownership and transparency of the process of Roma integration;
to boost the commitment to and effective implementation of integration measures at the local level with a view to improving the effective equal access of Roma to mainstream services and opportunities, as well as to local level community building between Roma and non-Roma;
to address the gaps in the implementation of the National Roma Integration Strategy and the challenges which are specific to the national context;
to feed reporting processes at national and EU level.
2. Description of the activities
This call will fund activities supporting active partnership between stakeholders in the development, implementation and monitoring of the National Roma Integration Strategies or integrated sets of policy measures in the Member States.
Member States using Commission support under the previous calls (REC-RDIS-NRCP-AG) to set up National Roma Platforms should set out how they intend to maintain and further develop them.
Proposals of Member States that have not applied for support under the above mentioned previous calls shall present the methodology to be used for the setting up or reinforcing and restructuring of National Roma Platforms, by inclusive and transparent involvement of all relevant stakeholders with a focus on implementation and monitoring of National Roma Integration Strategies and integrated set of measures, and for the implementation of their activities.
The National Roma Platforms should not be considered as one-off events or conferences but as an ongoing, joint process in which all relevant stakeholders work closely together towards better integration of Roma.
Activities should support nationally led participatory multi-stakeholder processes of working meetings aimed at strengthening partnership across all levels, including government authorities, regional and local authorities, civil society organisations, including Roma youth and Roma women organisations, private sector, academia, etc. The use of participatory methodologies, including with the help of professional facilitators, is encouraged.
Activities may include:
Meetings and events at national, regional or local levels of National Roma Platforms, including their preparation, organisation and follow-up activities.
Evaluation and review of NRIS and Roma integration measures, exchange and transfer of practices that proved effective at the local level.
Transnational exchange between different National Roma Platforms to promote policy learning and transfer of good practices.
The following concrete activities might be included in the proposal:
The following types of activities will not be funded by the Commission:
This call focuses on national activities.
3. Expected results
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