Presentation at the Vienna Conference, May 2016

1. DECENTRALIZATION OF
SOCIAL CARE SERVICES IN
SERBIA

2. SERBIA – basic facts
• Population (2015 est.): 7,114,393
• GDP per capita: 4,700 EUR (10,200 PPS)
• Average net wage: 360 EUR
• Average available monthly budget per household: 490 EUR
• Unemployment rate: 18.5%
• Absolute poverty rate: 8.9%
• Relative poverty rate: 25.6%

3. SOCIAL PROTECTION
SYSTEM
SP expenditure 25% GDP; 12% GDP pensions; 2.1% GDP social and child
protection

4. SOCIAL AND CHILD
PROTECTION BENEFITS

5. SOCIAL AND CHILD
PROTECTION CASH
BENEFITS – CENTRAL
LEVEL
Total expenditure 1.8% GDP
Administer at local level (CSW and LG departments)

6. SOCIAL AND CHILD
PROTECTION IN-KIND
BENEFITS – CENTRAL
LEVEL
Total expenditure 0.22% GDP
20,000 beneficiaries of residential and foster care services
(0.15% GDP)

7. SOCIAL AND CHILD
PROTECTION CASH
BENEFITS – LOCAL LEVEL

8. SOCIAL AND CHILD
PROTECTION IN-KIND
BENEFITS – LOCAL LEVEL

9. SOCIAL CARE SERVICES - LG
MANDATE

10. SOCIAL CARE SERVICES -
LG MANDATE
The community-based services are mostly in
the mandate of the local level
These services have been partly financed
through:
 Social Innovation Fund
 Public works
 Budget Fund for PWD Programs
 Donations
2011 Social Protection Law introduced
earmarked transfers

11. SOCIAL CARE SERVICES -
LG MANDATE
 Services are insufficiently available, unevenly developed
and often unsustainable
 In 2015 services were provided in 133 out of the 145 LG
 Total expenditure RSD 2.6 billion (less than 0.06% GDP)
 Home care for elderly and day care centers for CWD are
dominant:
 cover vast majority of the total number of beneficiaries
 refer to 66% of the total expenditures for services in the
LG’s mandate
 Other services are available only in bigger cities

12. SOCIAL CARE SERVICES -
LG MANDATE

13. CONSTRAINTS FOR
FURTHER
DECENTRALIZATION
 Huge differences in the size, professional capacities and
level of development of LG and the absence of regional
level administration
 SP beneficiaries are insufficiently informed and without
political power
 Local governments do not see their (political) interest in
allocating funds for SP
 Insufficiently developed control and M&E mechanisms that
could adequately support highly decentralized system

14. GOOD PRACTICES
1. Social Innovation Fund – transitional mechanisms for the
development of services, piloting of innovations, inputs
for reforms and inclusion of non-state actors into the
service provision
2. Earmarked transfers – additional funds for less
developed LG, LG with with residential care institutions in
the process of transformation and for innovative services
and services of a national importance
3. Mapping of services