Promoting the usa of ESI Funds for Roma inclusion

A combination of approaches, thematic objectives

and investment priorities to address Roma inclusion

Roma inclusion is

mainly addressed under ERDF Thematic Objective 9

and

Thematic

Objective 10

Within TO 9, the most common IPs are IP 9.a.

(Investing in health and social

infrastructure which contributes to national, regional and local development, reducing

inequalities in terms of health status, promoting social inclusion through improved

access to social, cultural and recreational services and the transition from institutional

to community-based services)

and IP 9.b.

(Providing support for physical, economic

and social regeneration of deprived communities in urban and rural areas). It is

under

IP 9.b. that the most explicit and targeted approaches

are found.

An outstanding case is the

Slovak

Human Resources OP

, which includes a dedicated

priority axis on ‘Technical facilities in municipalities with presence of marginalised Roma

communities’. Other examples include the

Italian

Metropolitan Cities OP

, in which one

of the specific objectives aims at ‘Reducing extreme marginality and interventions for

inclusion in favour of homeless people and of Roma, Sinti and

Caminanti’

, with a specific

action on ‘accommodation and space for services dedicated to the Roma community, Sinti

and

Caminanti’

. In

Hungary

the

Territorial and Settlement Development OP

plans measures

aimed at the elimination of Roma camps and the

Human Resources Development OP

‘Infrastructure investments for the inclusion of people living in persistent poverty, the Roma

and for the elimination of peripheral living conditions’.

As regards

TO 8 and TO 10

, the

information on the specific IPs is quite limited.

Despite the existence of some measures specifically targeting Roma/Roma

communities, in ERDF interventions it is

more common the use of ‘explicit but not

exclusive’ or even ‘no explicit’ mentions.

In some cases this is related to the use of territorial approaches such as the ones

previously presented. While in some cases interventions specifically target Roma

settlements/Roma communities, in others they target urban/rural areas in general

(some of them with a high percentage of Roma population) and it is assumed that

Roma will benefit from the interventions as inhabitants of the target areas. Such

assumption will need to be confirmed during the implementation phase.

As already mentioned in the case of ESF, the

use of other thematic objectives

that could

be also relevant to reach Roma, such as Thematic Objective 2, 5 and 6,

is not common