Data on the situation of Roma are crucial for formulating, budgeting, implementing and monitoring the Roma integration policies, including in regards to the achievement of the targets set in the Poznan Declaration. Thus, with the Declaration, the governments committed to use the available data (including the results of the 2017 Western Balkans Regional Roma Survey) to formulate evidence-based policies for integration of Roma, and to establish proper mechanism for monitoring and reporting on the implementation of the Roma policies, including data relevant to measure the achievements of the objectives set forth in the Declaration, by designating the national statistical offices as key responsible institutions for data collection in accordance with their programs.

One of the key successful aspects of the implementation of the Roma Integration action is that during the first year of implementation it managed to propose relevant regional reporting system, which was endorsed by the National Roma Contact Points. Based on this reporting system, the Governments of the Western Balkans and Turkey submit an annual report on the implementation and the achievements of their Roma integration policies since 2016.

The Governments are successful in monitoring, recording and reporting on the implemented activities and measures. The annual reports provide quite detailed elaboration on this aspect. However, significant improvements in the monitoring and reporting systems are needed in providing the number of beneficiaries from the various activities and measures, the budgets planned and spent for the activities, and perhaps most importantly – statistical data on the impact of the policies. The statistical data are needed also to monitor the achievement of the targets set with the Poznan Declaration.

To this end, the Roma Integration action has discussed this issue with all the National Roma Contact Points and domestic statistical agencies in each economy.  Although there are certain challenges in establishing regular statistical exercises for data on Roma integration, all the statistical agencies in the region are willing and interested in engaging in such process.

The statistical exercises must be context specific for each economy and should be in line and comparable with the statistical exercises at European Union level, including the FRA’s Roma Survey.  Currently, the Roma Integration is working with the Government and the statistical agency of North Macedonia to introduce a regular Roma Survey in the statistical programme, and hopes to initiate similar process in all the economies in the region.

National monitoring systems would enable linking the whole effort into a regional monitoring system, mirroring the online monitoring system that is currently being established at the EU level for the Member States. This is, however, a process that will require further input from the EU level.