 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
||||
|
 Cooperativa Parella Tel: +39. 011.7791265 |
|
 As all EU member states, Italy has committed itself to pursuing the common objectives developed by the social protection committee of fighting poverty and social exclusion. Identifying the actions to be undertaken in order to reach these objectives is difficult however, as the Italian system has certain particular characteristics. As poverty and social exclusion are multidimensional phenomena to be considered from various points of view (i.e. inequality in income distribution, living and health conditions, low education levels, long-term unemployment etc.) and people affected by social exclusion come from various categories (i.e. large families, the elderly, women, immigrants, the long-term unemployed etc.), a comprehensive project should be set up to deal with social exclusion and poverty coherently. The Italian model of social protection is only partially based on the management by objectives. As it is mainly based on legislative measures implemented by subsequent acts and plans that create a complex and sometimes unclear legislative background for implementing policies. In this scenario, policies are submitted to a fragmented series of norms, programmes, plans and initiatives that make it difficult to define legislative backgrounds, to identify possible paths to be realised and to evaluate the results. Most of the institutional actors agree with the principles of fighting social exclusion, but the complexity of the legislative framework makes it difficult to build co-ordinated and coherent awareness raising actions to identify and make use of existing tools to fight social exclusion (e.g. involving different actors, subsidiarity, access to funding etc.). The devolution process which is progressively transferring responsibilities from the State to regional and local authorities in all policy fields, delegates to the Regions of the enforcement of national laws and National Action Plans. Local institutions have always played a role in the local development of national strategies and in adapting them to the specific needs of the area. Due to their strong links with key local actors (i.e. education, training, social services, third sector, voluntary services, industry etc.) Regional authorities have always played a main role in managing and financing local services and projects through ministerial funds. Their proximity to problems and the need to find specific solution for specific local issues has pushed the Regions fill the gap that often exist between the conditions foreseen by the national laws and the ones necessary to have an effective impact at local level. Anyway, even nowadays, in daily practice, only through regional and local observatories on social policies, it is possible to have a clear view on local needs, evaluate them and build up adequate responses. This is why local actions and policies on fighting social exclusion, even if they hardly affect national plans are in any case fundamental to launch a future “bottom up” process able to influence national policies. The Italian 2003-2005 NAP is now coming to the end of its application. It is now a question of rewriting the next one but it is necessary for the direction to aim at different, more attentive and timely involvement of the local authorities and organisations that guarantee, of course through permanent networks, services and interventions aimed at the specific user target. The process of integration and the passage of information and experience among user groups, integrated in the services also as a result of significant experience of “equal operators” and local authorities should be able to see a parallel integration of various levels of government in the vertical integration of information. The references, in truth not very many, to social integration problems of homeless people should be able to be enriched by some of the reflections triggered by the lectures exchanging various experiences with respect to the intervention sectors pinpointed. It would be a question of including both the basic considerations triggered and the experiences gained, in the NAP. The themes of the multidimensionality of the homeless phenomena, targeted job placement, the need for housing integration policies conceived from a diversified point of view should be included in the next NAP just like the most significant experiments carried out in this field for a possible repositioning of models, operating indications etc. |
|
 |