Sarajevo – The Regional Cooperation Council (RCC)’s Roma Integration 2020 Action Team Leader, Orhan Usein is participating at the launching event of the ROMACTED Programme “Promoting Good Governance and Roma Empowerment at Local Level”, organized by the Council of Europe and Delegation of the European Union in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo today.

“The Roma Integration 2020 programme and the ROMACTED project have many synergies that complement each other in providing enhanced assistance to the Western Balkans and Turkey”, underlined Usein in his welcome speech. “In particular, we work directly with the governments at central level on better formulation, implementation, budgeting and monitoring of Roma Integration policies; while we strongly believe that any actions will have sustainable results only with the proper inclusion and cooperation of the local level, which we see through the ROMACTED programme”, said Roma Integration 2020 Action Team Leader.

This could be done through ensuring that the ROMACTED municipalities are involved in Roma Integration 2020 Public Dialogue Forums and their priority-setting, inclusion of selected municipalities in the process of monitoring of implementation of the Action Plans for Roma Integration and adoption of the minimum standards for Roma Sensitive Budgeting at the local level. With this approach, any mainstream measures planned for employment, health, housing, would take into consideration the specific situation of Roma at the local level and ensure they are also for the benefit of the Roma communities.

The event is being hosted by the Deputy Head of EU Delegation Mr. Khaldoun Sinno, Head of Office of the Council of Europe in Bosnia and Herzegovina Ambassador Drahoslav Stefanek, Minister of Human Rights and Refugees of Bosnia and Herzegovina Semiha Borovac, Mujo Fafulic from Romalen Kakanja and Head of the Strategic Partnerships Unit - Roma and Travellers Team, Directorate of Democratic Governance and Anti-Discrimination of the Council of Europe Aurora Ailincai.

The ROMACTED Programme “Promoting Good Governance and Roma Empowerment at Local Level” is joint initiative of the Council of Europe and the European Union which aims to build up political will and sustained policy engagement of local authorities to enhance democratic local governance and improve and expand the institutions' commitment, capacities, knowledge and skills in working for Roma inclusion. Programme is implemented in 10 municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the full active support of Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees of BIH.