Empowering National Pension Scheme Constituents in South Eastern Europe

The broad goal of project is to promote higher levels of transparency in pension administration, thus enabling the social partners to better understand, evaluate, and influence national pension policies. The approach to this objective differs from country to country, reflecting current national issues and problems. Thus, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the main thrust is to prepare and advocate for the establishment of a tripartite governing board (or boards) for the country’s two pension schemes. In Moldova, the project is developing a strategy for improving the collection of pension contributions that includes the social partners as key players and emphasizes the benefits of compliance with the contribution requirement and the damaging social consequences of non-compliance. In Serbia, the project is supporting a small team of social partners who serve on the governing board of the national pension scheme for employees in their effort to upgrade the expertise and skills of regional pension board members, with particular respect to transparency in administration, performance by board members, and financial governance. Development objective: National pension schemes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, and Serbia will function with higher levels of transparency, resulting in greater participation in scheme governance and policy making by the social partners. Immediate objectives: to use the ILO Handbook on Social Security Governance produced under the recently completed ILO-French project for CEE countries as a basis for collaboration in the following: · Bosnia and Herzegovina - A model is developed for tripartite scheme governance, its adoption is advocated, and its launch is supported. · Moldova - Pension financing is strengthened by developing more effective approaches to collection of owed contributions; and · Serbia – National and regional pension boards deal more effectively with key governance issues, by increasing transparency in administration, financial management, and actions by boards and their members.

Project symbol

RER/06/08/FRA

Admin unit

DWT/CO-Budapest

Start date

22/12/2006

End date

30/06/2009

Total allocation

185422

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

185422

Development Partners

France, Ministère du Travail des Relations sociales, de la Famille, de la Solidarité et de la Ville

Country/Countries

Central and Eastern Europe

Outcomes

Social Security