The Poznan Declaration foresees the agreement to develop, adopt and implement regional standards on public budgeting related to Roma integration for mainstream and targeted policies, use and increase the public budgeting, both central and local, reaching Roma communities to achieve the abovementioned objectives, use available donor funding, including Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance, to advance the status of Roma.

The Guidelines for Roma Responsive Budgeting resulted from the work of the Intergovernmental Working Group for Roma Responsive Budgeting supported by the Regional Cooperation Council Roma Integration Action Team, with the participation of the Ministries of Finance and the National Roma Contact Points. The Guidelines for Roma responsive budgeting were officially endorsed at the Summit of the Leaders of the Western Balkans in Sofia in November 2020.

The Guidelines are intended primarily for the line ministries responsible for the different priority areas for Roma integration and most importantly for the Ministries of Finance. These institutions need to be able to recognize and provide an appropriate response to the potential for promoting Roma integration when preparing and adopting policy proposals and concrete measures, whether they are mainstream socioeconomic policies or policies specifically targeted at Roma. The ultimate aim is to ensure equality for Roma by reducing the socioeconomic gaps between Roma and the rest of society.

Civil servants were trained to perform Roma responsive budgeting of policies and action plans, based on existing evidence of Roma needs and policies’ successes. The project worked with government representatives, relevant lines ministries, as well as representatives from the local level, by piloting the guidelines in two sector policy areas in the drafting of the 2020 annual budgets. Similar processes will be supported in the upcoming period.