The objective of this paper is to develop a way to monitor and track progress on social inclusion of vulnerable groups in Hungary, particularly among marginalized Roma communities.
... See More + This approach will enable stakeholders to track the status of social inclusion at the sub regional level, and can serve as a feedback mechanism on whether projects cosponsored by the European structural and investment funds (ESIF) are sufficiently targeted to disadvantaged areas. The paper builds on various Hungarian attempts to draft indicator sets to find and subsequently gear European Union (EU) - funded projects toward areas with the poorest social inclusion outcomes. This report takes stock of different exercises undertaken with Hungarian data to map, target, track, and monitor some aspects of social exclusion at different levels of disaggregation. The authors present four such attempts to: (i) map marginalized communities; (ii) target the most disadvantaged micro regions; (iii) track selected social inclusion goals; and (iv) model at risk of poverty (AROP) rates at the micro regional level. The report examines what has been done in international practice in terms of selecting and collecting indicators that measure social inclusion. The report describes the method and process of indicator selection for Hungary. The concluding section summarizes the dilemmas associated with dynamically measuring social change in the Hungarian context, and presents development project parameters that should be continuously followed in order to enable tracking and (limited) monitoring.
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The Handbook was developed with several key audiences in mind. Firstly, and most importantly, it is intended for local governments which have relatively large number of residents in the equal opportunity target groups or other disadvantaged groups within their administrative areas.
... See More + The second target audience of this Handbook is comprised of municipal employees and civil professionals responsible for the preparation, implementation and organization of the local delivery of social services. Two key consideration guided the focus on the Handbook in this context: (i) the Hungarian local government system is extremely heterogeneous by nature and as a consequence, (ii) the local level obligations vary greatly depending on the size of the settlement. The Handbook therefore focuses on the challenges and opportunities of those local governments and related stakeholders that have the relevant primary care capacities and apparatus. Primary care capacities means that these local governments run more than just the basic social services (child day care facilities up to primary education and access to basic healthcare facilities). More specifically, the focus is on those local governments that are in charge of a more comprehensive set of some social, educational and health services and that also receive funding for the implementation of employment initiatives. The target audience in this context is the staff which is responsible for designing and running these services. Having made this caveat, the Handbook still provides useful clues for smaller municipalities, particularly with regard to how they can best facilitate access to relevant services that are available within the communities’ vicinity i.e. are provided by higher-tier government agencies - which often proves to be the most pragmatic way to address service gaps.
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The report is structured as follows: section two offers a brief snapshot of Hungary’s macroeconomic situation and the most prominent equal opportunity challenges currently facing the country.
... See More + This provides the backdrop for the presentation of the equal opportunity planning, implementation, and monitoring framework in section three. This is followed by an institutional ‘gap analysis’ on the key challenges that arise in the context of planning and implementing equal opportunity plans. The gap analysis details the roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders at the central, district, and local level, followed by an assessment of the key challenges that municipalities encountered during LEPs’ planning and initial implementation phases. The objectives of sections five and six are to learn from experiences both inside and outside of Hungary. Section five presents recent experiences and lessons from Central Europe regarding approaches to facilitate the planning and delivery of integrated social inclusion interventions at the local level. Section six turns the focus back to Hungary and establishes a proposed set of common basic criteria to assess and identify social inclusion best practices at the local level. It presents the main findings from the set of case studies that were produced for this report. These case studies showcase local experiences with the implementation of social inclusion activities, from high- and low-capacity urban areas as well as rural localities. A ‘spotlight’ on the social economy provides some background on this widely referenced, and often misunderstood, concept and identifies some global lessons as well as experiences from Hungary. Section seven presents the main findings regarding how the three key bottlenecks related to LEP planning and implementation, and offers three comprehensive recommendations to improve the role LEPs can play in safeguarding equal opportunities at the local level. Each of the three recommendations contains an overview of the intended objectives, key elements that need to be implemented, and an overview of expected costs and benefits.
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The objective of this paper is to develop a way to monitor and track progress on social inclusion of vulnerable groups in Hungary, particularly among marginalized Roma communities.
... See More + This approach will enable stakeholders to track the status of social inclusion at the sub-regional level, and can serve as a feedback mechanism on whether projects cosponsored by the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) are sufficiently targeted to disadvantaged areas. The second part of this report takes stock of different exercises undertaken with Hungarian data to map, target, track, and monitor some aspects of social exclusion at different levels of disaggregation. The report then examines what has been done in international practice in terms of selecting and collecting indicators that measure social inclusion. This part relies heavily on Labonte et al. (2011), who conducted a meta-analysis of such attempts in the United Kingdom, France, Australia, and across Europe. These examples from around the world focused primarily on collecting indicators of social exclusion at the national level, and not at a highly disaggregated subnational level (which is the objective of this exercise). In addition, international attempts to measure progress toward social inclusion did not attempt to track progress on a regular basis, be it annually or even every few years. Finally, the report describes the method and process of indicator selection for Hungary. We also identify gaps and articulate remaining research needs. The concluding section summarizes the dilemmas associated with dynamically measuring social change in the Hungarian context, and proposes development project parameters that should be continuously followed in order to enable tracking and (limited) monitoring.
See Less -
The Handbook was developed with several key audiences in mind. Firstly, and most importantly, it is intended for local governments which have relatively large number of residents in the equal opportunity target groups or other disadvantaged groups within their administrative areas.
... See More + The second target audience of this Handbook is comprised of municipal employees and civil professionals responsible for the preparation, implementation and organization of the local delivery of social services. Two key consideration guided the focus on the Handbook in this context: (i) the Hungarian local government system is extremely heterogeneous by nature and as a consequence, (ii) the local level obligations vary greatly depending on the size of the settlement. The Handbook therefore focuses on the challenges and opportunities of those local governments and related stakeholders that have the relevant primary care capacities and apparatus. Primary care capacities means that these local governments run more than just the basic social services (child day care facilities up to primary education and access to basic healthcare facilities). More specifically, the focus is on those local governments that are in charge of a more comprehensive set of some social, educational and health services and that also receive funding for the implementation of employment initiatives. The target audience in this context is the staff which is responsible for designing and running these services. Having made this caveat, the Handbook still provides useful clues for smaller municipalities, particularly with regard to how they can best facilitate access to relevant services that are available within the communities’ vicinity i.e. are provided by higher-tier government agencies - which often proves to be the most pragmatic way to address service gaps.
See Less -
The objective of this paper is to develop a way to monitor and track progress on social inclusion of vulnerable groups in Hungary, particularly among marginalized Roma communities.
... See More + This approach will enable stakeholders to track the status of social inclusion at the sub-regional level, and can serve as a feedback mechanism on whether projects cosponsored by the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) are sufficiently targeted to disadvantaged areas. The second part of this report takes stock of different exercises undertaken with Hungarian data to map, target, track, and monitor some aspects of social exclusion at different levels of disaggregation. The report then examines what has been done in international practice in terms of selecting and collecting indicators that measure social inclusion. This part relies heavily on Labonte et al. (2011), who conducted a meta-analysis of such attempts in the United Kingdom, France, Australia, and across Europe. These examples from around the world focused primarily on collecting indicators of social exclusion at the national level, and not at a highly disaggregated subnational level (which is the objective of this exercise). In addition, international attempts to measure progress toward social inclusion did not attempt to track progress on a regular basis, be it annually or even every few years. Finally, the report describes the method and process of indicator selection for Hungary. We also identify gaps and articulate remaining research needs. The concluding section summarizes the dilemmas associated with dynamically measuring social change in the Hungarian context, and proposes development project parameters that should be continuously followed in order to enable tracking and (limited) monitoring.
See Less -
The report is structured as follows: section two offers a brief snapshot of Hungary’s macroeconomic situation and the most prominent equal opportunity challenges currently facing the country.
... See More + This provides the backdrop for the presentation of the equal opportunity planning, implementation, and monitoring framework in section three. This is followed by an institutional ‘gap analysis’ on the key challenges that arise in the context of planning and implementing equal opportunity plans. The gap analysis details the roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders at the central, district, and local level, followed by an assessment of the key challenges that municipalities encountered during LEPs’ planning and initial implementation phases. The objectives of sections five and six are to learn from experiences both inside and outside of Hungary. Section five presents recent experiences and lessons from Central Europe regarding approaches to facilitate the planning and delivery of integrated social inclusion interventions at the local level. Section six turns the focus back to Hungary and establishes a proposed set of common basic criteria to assess and identify social inclusion best practices at the local level. It presents the main findings from the set of case studies that were produced for this report. These case studies showcase local experiences with the implementation of social inclusion activities, from high- and low-capacity urban areas as well as rural localities. A ‘spotlight’ on the social economy provides some background on this widely referenced, and often misunderstood, concept and identifies some global lessons as well as experiences from Hungary. Section seven presents the main findings regarding how the three key bottlenecks related to LEP planning and implementation, and offers three comprehensive recommendations to improve the role LEPs can play in safeguarding equal opportunities at the local level. Each of the three recommendations contains an overview of the intended objectives, key elements that need to be implemented, and an overview of expected costs and benefits.
See Less -
