REPUBLIC OF SERBIA MINISTRY OF YOUTH AND SPORT THE ANNUAL REPORT ON THE PROGRESS IN THE NATIONAL YOUTH STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION - 2009 - Belgrade, May 2010 The Report was made with the technical assistance of the German organization for technical cooperation (GTZ )under the scope of the project “Strengthening of structures for youth empowerment and participation”. 1. INTRODUCTION In a wide consultative process and through participation of all stakeholders, above all young people, the National Youth Strategy (hereinafter referred to as “NYS“) was made and adopted by the Serbian Government on 9 May 2008 on Europe Day. While finishing the NYS, the work on the action plan for its implementation was initiated. The Аction plan for the implementation of the National Youth Strategy for the period from 2009 to 2014 (hereinafter referred to as “APNYS“) was adopted by the Government on 22 January 2009. Fifteen ministries, a large number of the young, state bodies, organizations and institutions, associations, local self-governments, and experts in various fields took place in the process of drafting APNYS. APNYS defined the activities and protagonists in every sector under the scope of NYS, as well as the deadlines for the implementation and priority activities in 2009, the first year of implementation. Based on APNYS, all ministries, organizations and institutions, and protagonists in certain activities of the implementation made a plan of the implementation of the activities and included them in their annual plans for the year 2009. Following the agreed cooperation on the APNYS implementation, the Ministry of Youth and Sports (hereinafter referred to as “MYS“) prepared a special method of collecting the information on the implementation of the activities planned for the year 2009, concordant with the suggested APNYS monitoring and evaluation method. Based on the collected information, the Annual report on the progress of the National Youth Strategy implementation was made .1 2. METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH The Report on the progress of the NYS implementation was prepared based on several sources of information harmonized with the defined APNYS monitoring and evaluation system. There are two groups of sources used in making the report: а) responses of the protagonists in activities and projects in the special questionnaire for monitoring the APNYS implementation in 2009. The questionnaire consisted of three segments – the correspondence of the implemented activity/project to a general goal and specific objective of the NYS, the survey of elements and effects of the immediate implementation and the proposal of the planned activities for the year 2010. The example of the questionnaire is enclosed in Annex 1, whereas the list of all protagonists who sent their reports is enclosed in Annex 2; b) reports and research on certain aspects of the youth policy or about the attitudes of the young made or conducted for MOS by other bodies, organizations, and institutions. The questionnaire prepared by MYS especially for the monitoring of implementation is structured to enable collection of all relevant information and indicators of the implemented activities and projects. In addition to the informative part, the questionnaire provided the direct evaluation of: • the degree of implementation of planned activities and projects; 1 The Report on APNYS implementation was made jointly by MYS and GTZ project “Strengthening of the Structures for Youth Empowerment and Participation”. 2 • degree of implemented results in relation to the results projected in APNYS; • restrictions in the implementation, if any; • lessons learned from the mere process of implementation of activities and projects; • degree of sustainability of implemented activities and projects, i.e. long-term effects on the young and their life in community. MYS sent the questionnaire to all protagonists in the APNYS activities planned for 2009. Responses were sent back by 22 ministries, state bodies, organizations and institutions, 77 towns and municipalities – self-government units (SGU), 67 of which have opened the local youth offices (LYO) and 54 associations whose projects were financed by MYS in 2008 and 2009, and implemented in 2009. Additionally, MYS sent the questionnaires to the international organizations which provided support to the APNYS activities and projects. Responses and reports were sent by six international organizations. The report is structured based on the general goals and specific objectives of the NYS, activities planned in APNYS, and the questionnaire prepared for collecting the information. The obtained information were analyzed in comparison to the activities planned in APNYS and the defined monitoring system for the APNYS implementation. Comparison and analysis of the data were impeded in the half-filled questionnaires, and the questionnaires with unclear answers. Another difficulty arose in the questionnaires where not all three segments were fulfilled so that no true picture of the implementation could be obtained. Also, the problem in processing of the collected data was the indicated number of participants. As most of the ministries did not state the number of participants in the activities and projects, the information of the number of participants obtained from the answers of other protagonists could be taken only as an approximate benchmark and cannot be considered final and precise, but can be taken as an approximate indicator of the number of participants in certain activities and projects. In the first part of the Report, general indicators of APNYS implementation in the first year of implementation are shown, comprising the following: • structure of protagonists of APNYS implementation; • structure of activities; • participants in the APNYS implementation; • primary results of the implemented activities and projects; • implemented partnerships and cooperation among protagonists; • lessons learned from the implementation of activities and projects; • restrictions which arose in the course of implementation. In the second part of the Report, a detailed analysis of all eleven general goals of the NYS is shown, which enables a precise insight into implementation of activities and projects under the scope of each goal and its specific objectives. Some general goals are analyzed and presented in charts and figures, whereas the others are described in writing, depending on the diversification of the implemented activities (under some general goals only one activity with the specific objective was implemented, which couldn’t be presented in a chart or figure). 3 PART ONE 4 1. The implementation directions 1.1 Protagonists in the implementation and their roles Implementation of activities defined in the APNYS was realized in a few ways: o through initiating and direct implementation of the planned activities most often by ministries, state bodies and organizations, either independently or jointly in partnership, following the responsibilities defined in APNYS; o through general or topical tenders for the activities defined by the APNYS general goal(s) for associations, the young, organizations, and institutions. The tenders were announced by the ministries, SGU, and other organizations. As the key protagonist in the APNYS implementation, МYS carried out the defined responsibilities – а) independently and/or b) together with other state bodies, organizations, institutions and ministries. а) МYS independently implemented activities defined in the APNYS in several metheds and forms: o as independent, autonomous activities which APNYS defines for the particular year and which are funded directly by MYS; o as tenders for asociations which will implement the APNYS activities in their projects and MYS provides the financial funds, while the associations implement the projects; o as the announcements of the Serbian Fund for Young Talents, the indirect beneficiary of the budget funds through the distribution of the Ministry of Youth and Sports funds; o as the activities implemented by MYS to support the youth offices and local self- governments. b) МYS together with other ministries, international organizations, associations and organizations implemented the activities and projects outlined in the APNYS. These activities were planned and initiated by other ministries state bodies, organizations and institutions based on their programmes and budget plans, and MYS was a cooperant, partner or co- implementor. 1.2 Structure of the implemented activities based on the NYS general goals The analysis of the number of implemented activities / projects can be taken as a benchmark for the analysis of APNYS implementation and it provides a response to one of the APNYS indicators. Based on the information obtained from the questionnaires in 2009, 1.069 activities and projects within APNYS were implemented. The structure of the implemented activities based on the NYS general goals is the following: 5 Number of General goal activities and projects General goal 1 To encourage the young to participate actively in society 19 3 General goal 2 To develop cooperation with the young and provide conditions for their 77 participation in decision-making through a sustainable institutional framework, based on the needs of the young and in partnership with the young General goal 3 To build a system of informing the young on all levels and in all fields 66 General goal 4 To secure exercising of the right to equal opportunities of all th e young 69 in society, particularly of the young living in