At 40%, Romania’s
\npoverty and social exclusion rate is among the highest in the European Union,
\naccording to Eurostat. In February, the government launched a plan to fight
\npoverty consisting of 47 different measures that reflect an integrated approach
\nto all the problems vulnerable individuals and families may be facing. Most of
\nthese measures target children. In Romania, more than 1.7 million children live
\nin poverty, mostly in the country’s rural areas. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Eight months after
\nlaunching the anti-poverty package, the government has presented the main
\nachievements of the programme and the measures to be taken in the coming
\nperiod. Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos has said that in Romania, poverty is
\ncaused by corruption and the way in which public resources are allocated: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Unless we
\novercome the behaviour that favours corruption, we won’t be able to eradicate
\npoverty. Our efforts were mainly aimed at unblocking certain measures that
\nalready existed but which for various reasons had not been implemented. We took
\na series of measures to simplify things, we linked institutions and people with
\nresponsibilities in these areas that had been working individually and had not
\nbeen coordinated with each other. We also used different sources of funding,
\nsuch as the state budget, European funds and other sources that had the same
\ntarget but were inefficient when employed on their own. We started with the
\nidea that once such actions are put in motion, they would irreversibly
\npropagate provided they are applied conscientiously and rigorously. Apart from
\nwhat the state itself can do, it is also important to find the most efficient
\nways to work together with civil society to implement these measures and follow
\nup on them.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In Romania,
\none in three children lives in persistent poverty. While there are no official
\nstatistics, it is estimated that more than 150,000 young people over the age of
\n14 do not have identity papers. The school dropout rate in Romania is also
\nquite high, with one in five children leaving school after the age of
\neighteen. Prime minister Dacian Ciolos
\nonce again:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
There are
\nstill children who don’t have identity documents. So we have come up with
\nmeasures enabling each child to obtain them. We have also taken measures to
\nprevent school dropout, which includes dealing with the problem of pre-school
\nintegration. In this particular case we used a programme that was already
\nworking very well in the non-governmental environment and which we have
\nadopted. We realised that many children don’t go to school because they don’t
\nhave clothes to wear and nothing to put in their lunchboxes. To address this,
\nwe turned to programmes that already existed on the provision of free fruit and
\nmeals in school, programmes that are not ready to be implemented on a large
\nscale. We are currently carrying out a pilot programme to provide free hot
\nmeals which can form the basis for an after-school programme later on.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
To stimulate
\nthe labour market and help job seekers, starting on December 1st,
\ncompanies hiring young graduates or unemployed people will receive a subsidy of
\n900 lei, up from 500 lei. Also, unemployed people who have to travel more than
\n50 km for work and have to relocate will benefit from a relocation allowance of
\n12,500 lei. Education minister Mircea Dumitru has presented a series of
\nmeasures in the field of education, emphasising that a number of strategic
\nprojects are in the pipeline for the end of the year:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
A national
\nprogramme to help poor families buy school materials for their children has
\nbeen extended. This package will be more consistent starting next school year
\nand may also be available for pre-school children. We would like to launch a
\npublic debate on curricula reforms for compulsory education, for secondary
\neducation. […] For all these social measures to work in education we need
\nwell-prepared and well-motivated teachers, so we need better training for
\nfuture teachers. Last but not least, as an outcome of our fight against fraud
\nand corruption, we are also launching a public debate on the methodology for
\nthe assessment of doctoral schools. In a not too distant future, we also hope
\nto begin a nationwide process to assess doctoral schools, so that universities
\nmay be able to provide quality education when it comes to training
\nhighly-skilled and high performing workforce.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Fighting poverty is a priority of public policies,
\nand economic growth should benefit everyone, said the finance minister Anca
\nDragu: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
We have managed to ensure funding for new programmes
\nto get children in pre-school education and provide free fruit in schools. A
\nprogramme I am very fond of that which seeks to provide free hot meals in
\nschools, in which I became personally involved. We have allocated 2.5 billion
\nlei for this programme. It’s not cheap, but it is essential in our fight
\nagainst poverty and in ensuring the right education of young people and their
\nfuture in Romania. At the beginning of the year we allocated 1.2 billion lei
\nfor the rehabilitation of schools. In the case of vocational training, we plan
\nto come up with a package of tax measures to support entrepreneurs willing to
\nfund vocational training. Throughout the year we have provided funds for these
\nprojects in education and healthcare and for fighting poverty. During the
\nlatest budget adjustment in August we managed to find supplementary sources of
\nfunding and allocated 570 million lei to healthcare, over one billion lei to
\neducation and 2.8 billion lei for social assistance.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Speaking about the government’s anti-poverty plan,
\nthe health minister Vlad Vociulescu highlighted the relationship between
\npoverty and healthcare, underlining that poverty is to blame for bad nutrition,
\nwhich eventually leads to illness. People eat cheap foodstuffs containing a lot
\nof additives because they don’t have money, and this leads to serious health
\nconditions, including cancer. One of the achievements of the healthcare
\nministry is the launch of a medical caravan with Norwegian funding, with
\ndoctors and nurses travelling to isolated villages across the country to
\nprovide free medical services. They ministry is also working on a vaccination
\nbill to grant social incentives to families who don’t have their children
\nvaccinated because they don’t have the money. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
To implement the anti-poverty package, Romania has at
\nits disposal more than 572 million euros out of the European Regional
\nDevelopment Fund for the 2014-2020 period available to projects focusing on
\nsocial inclusion and the reduction of poverty.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eight months after launching an anti-poverty package, the government has presented its main achievements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67314,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42997],"tags":[43576],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-142059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-today","tag-anti-poverty"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n