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KfW Projects in Serbia

Strengthening Social Infrastructure in Communities Affected by the Refugee Crisis

Donor: Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
Partners: Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs/ Ministry for Public Investment
Project period: since 2016

Challenges

  • The social infrastructure in structurally weak communities, especially in the south of Serbia, has been suffering for years from a lack of investment.
  • Urgent renovations to social facilities, such as schools, kindergartens and health centres, have not been carried out.
  • Many structurally weak communities do not have enough capacity to plan, tender and control the necessary investments.
  • Weak public welfare, high unemployment (12% average in Serbia) and the poor economic situation lead to the situation that many Serbs in structurally weak communities do not see a prospect of staying for themselves and their families and decide to emigrate. Particularly disadvantaged are deprived groups who only have poor income opportunities. Especially members of the Roma ethnic minority fall under this group of people.
  • The project aims to rehabilitate, expand or rebuild facilities of social infrastructure in structurally weak or migrant-affected communities.

Approach

  • The aim of the aid measure is to improve social infrastructure services for the local population, especially for vulnerable groups such as minorities (Roma) and returned migrants. The aim is to reduce the emigration pressure on the local population and to reduce the potential for conflict between migrants and the local population.
  • The programme covers the construction/rehabilitation of, in particular, kindergartens, schools and health facilities. An additional measure helps enabling disadvantaged groups (in particular Roma) to have a better access to relevant public service.

Results

  • The project aims to implement more than 13 projects in up to 9 municipalities on the so-called Balkan route (Bujanovac, Leskovac, Surdulica, Bosilegrad, Dimitrovgrad, Šid, Subotica, Žabari and Beočin)

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