Center for Legal Resources

The NGOs have very little capacity to influence the policies on fighting discrimination


Experts of the several authorities with competences in the field of antidiscrimination and representatives of the related NGOs made several additions to the reports made by the Center for Legal Resources (CLR),  during the seminar "Establishing a network of socio-economic experts in the field of non-discrimination", organized by CLR on September 24th, in Bucharest.

The seminar was an activity within the project with the same name implemented by OSB Consulting (Austria) and Human European Consultancy (Netherlands) in the PROGRESS Program of the EU, for which CLR provides the necessary expertise and implementation in Romania.

The approximately 25 participants in discussions revealed that non-governmental organizations have very little capacity to influence, develop, adopt and amend anti-discrimination policies and that in Romania, the process of "mainstreaming policy” (an integrate approach of the equal opportunities principle in devising policies) is almost nonexistent. They also deemed necessary a greater transparency of the National Institute of Statistics and of the state authorities that own statistics and indicators relevant to the field or of those that develop and implement policies on non-discrimination, equal opportunities and social inclusion matters.

The two reports exposed by the CLR are going to be sent to the European Commission, bearing the additions discussed during this seminar. The reports include references to the situation of non-discrimination in Romania (institutions, policies, relevant actors, the debate on the diversity in society), as well as the situation of vulnerable groups and how they have been affected by economic crisis.