Launching Event for Voucher Scheme for families in need and UN Community Volunteer deployment Humanitarian Assistance project (HAP)

October 15, 2021

Maria Suokko UNDP Kosovo Resident Representative

Launching Event for Voucher Scheme for families in need and UN Community Volunteer deployment

Humanitarian Assistance project (HAP)

24 May 2021

Dear,

-         Mr. Tomáš Szunyog, EU Special Representative

-         Mr. Hekuran Murati, Minister of Finance, Labour and Transfers

-         Partners from the Ministry, Centers for Social Works, University of Pristina, UNV Representative and young social workers who joined the UNV programme recently.

-         Colleagues from UNDP

Thank you for being here with us today.

We commend Kosovo Institutions efforts to advance the social services and youth employment. An estimated 18% of the population in Kosovo live below the poverty line, and 5% live in extreme poverty; inhabitants of rural areas and female-led households are disproportionality affected by poverty. Groups subject to discrimination, especially Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptian communities, as well as children, youth, women, and the elderly, are at a greater risk of facing unprecedented hardship.

Social services, decentralized to the municipal level, suffer from a lack of adequate funding, limited quality of services and poor links with other sectors for social inclusion.

The first year of the COVID-19 pandemic has radically changed the social, economic, and financial lives of people and businesses. UNDP’s Rapid Socio-Economic Impact Assessment (SEIA) has generated comparative data through three assessments, enabling a comprehensive understanding of the ongoing impact of the pandemic in Kosovo for both people and businesses. It has also noted in which areas Kosovo institutions and other stakeholders should focus their assistance.

In response, UN Kosovo Team has developed a Socio-Economic Response Plan aimed at mitigating the impacts of the pandemic. The Plan allows us to respond in an integrated way, in alignment with Kosovo’s priorities and needs and coordination with other development partners such as the EU, just as we are doing through this project.

Through this EU-funded project, UNDP targeted people and individuals living in poverty or at risk of socio-economic marginalization; single mothers/women heads of households, minority communities, women victims of or at risk of gender-based violence, abuse or domestic violence; people living in remote rural areas who experience difficulties to access social facilities and services.

The Action directly contributes to the Objective 3 of the Sectorial Strategy 2018-2022, which aims to increase social welfare through expanding and raising the quality of protection and social and family services, with a special focus on groups in need and gender equality.

As we all know, UNDP have a long-standing cooperation with the ministry and especially through Active Labour Market Programmes (ALMP) and expanded cooperation with the EU to benefit the whole of Kosovo society.

And, as a result of such great synergies and cooperation, Today, we are here to launch two key activities of a larger intervention:

·        A new generation of certified social workers who can seamlessly engage in the system and will, at the very least, maintain timely service provision. The 40 selected UN Community Volunteers started their 12 months assignments on 29 April at the Centers of Social Work throughout Kosovo. 36, or 90 per cent of them are young women and seven, or 18 per cent are from non-majority communities.

and

·        Temporary support for approximately 7,500 vulnerable families living in extreme poverty by providing monthly vouchers for food, hygiene, and other essential items, for six months, starting as of 1 May 2021.

We are sure that the project will achieve a great impact, and this is mainly due to the deep commitment of all parties to address main development challenges Kosovo faces, poverty and unemployment.

Together with the Institutions, we are working to a sustainable recovery and to do so —we must do everything in our power to promote a “green recovery” and ensure that we do not simply Build Back Better, but rather Build Forward Better and support the green economy.

Dear partners and distinguished participants, thank you for being with us today. Your presence and support throughout this process are much appreciated, and we look forward to successful implementation of all actions together.