Serbia

Rural Serbia faced with high poverty and material deprivation, finds survey on social exclusion

Presentation of Survey Findings at Belgrade Media Center

The non-governmental organisation SeConS – Development Initiative Group, with the support of the United Nations Development Programme in Serbia, carried out the first survey on the social exclusion and poverty in rural areas of Serbia in second half of 2009. 

The survey is to contribute to Serbia’s faster acceding to European process of harmonising national social policies. The results of the survey were presented to Government representatives, CSOs and experts on 17^th February 2010 at the round table opened by UNDP Deputy Resident Representative, Ms. Rini Reza.  

The survey is based on the concept of social exclusion and poverty forming the basis for social policy development in the EU. It  was carried out with the aim to recognise the most important problems in rural areas in Serbia that created risks of poverty and social exclusion, as well as to identify social groups that were at the highest risk of poverty and social exclusion. Besides, the aim of the survey was to look into current effects of various relevant policies, as well as to present recommendations for improving measures or their implementation in the aim of boosting social inclusion of rural population, and thus supporting rural development as an important component of sustainable development in Serbia.  

The survey comprised 4 dimensions of social inclusion that are defined by the EU: financial poverty, employment, education and health, as well as two additional nationally specific indicators: material deprivation and socio-cultural participation.  Some of the findings are that  poverty and material deprivation are highly present in rural Serbia, regional differences in the presence of poverty are significant ( the least favourable in Southern and Eastern Serbia) and that poverty is significantly linked to the big farms with agricultural production. 

The presented findings pose a strong warning about an unfavourable state of affairs in rural areas in various aspects, as well as necessities of developing and applying more efficient policies relevant to inclusion of rural population into sustainable rural development in Serbia. The picture of poverty and social exclusion in rural Serbia will certainly be more comprehensive if in 2010, the Year of Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion, when the first SILC (Survey on Income and Living Conditions) research is carried out in Serbia, which will enable the comparison of rural and urban social exclusion.