Duration: September 2016 – June 2017
Client: DG Regio of the European Commission
The expert TA activities included various forms and served various goals, and had more and less intense phases depending on the needs of the stakeholders and the flow of the respective call for proposal development, or policy development. The activities can be grouped under the following core groups:
- facilitating communication among key stakeholders
- between strategic planners and executive stakeholders within the MAs and ministries
- between MAs and
- thematic expert support in housing and education policies
- thematic expert support in the partnership process, supporting MAs
- thematic expert support to beneficiaries (among them SZGYF, and interested other beneficiaries like KLIK and various municipalities)
Results:
Assessment of implementation of the EC guidance on desegregation. In Hungary, in the course of September 2016-June 2017, the guidance’s core recommendations have been incorporated in selected call for proposals. The actual social impact of the guidance can be observed in the forthcoming years since no projects have been implemented so far.
Assessment of the implementation of local actions. In Hungary, in-field local actions that have been designed based on call for proposals that have been harmonised with the guidance have not yet been launched.
Recommendations provided to national authorities during the contract period on embedding de-segregation measures in ESIF-funded actions. The core recommendations were to align the design of available funding according to desegregation goals in both housing and education, and thematic and textual recommendations were made to selected call for proposals to make sure that the recommendations are practical and feasible.
Conclusions of synergies and coordination at national level between different ESIFs and relevant national authorities (e.g. MAs). At the technical level, some more coordination seems to be essential, especially in the area of housing desegregation measures, because two line ministries take responsibility for such actions. Also, smoother coordination between strategic planning and executive stakeholders could facilitate the implementation of ESIF.
Summary to EC and recommendation to Hungarian authorities on the mapping exercises. In the Hungarian context, so far only few desegregation measures have taken place in education and housing. Obviously, the current political leadership in the respective line ministry is rather reluctant to undertake real steps to foster desegregation in education. For housing measures, SZGYF has a dedicated task to compile best practices and disseminate them among potential beneficiaries as part of its EU funded TA project.
Coordination and compliance with national strategies. In the Hungarian context, the content and goals of the NSIS II are fully in line with the guidance. However, the actual political discourse and actions do not reflect the strategy. The forthcoming local urban housing related projects will be more advanced (they have been designed based on the previous implementation period’s lessons, actually independent from the guidance), and the rural housing integration projects are still under evaluation. Hence, their compliance with the strategy cannot be judged yet.