Autonomy, Voice and Participation of Persons with Disabilities in Serbia

The action responds to priority areas as concerns the position and rights of persons with disabilities in Serbia – equality before the law, equality of women and girls with disabilities and the right to work. Therefore, the project is divided into three activity pillars that utilize the involvement of specialized UN agencies, strong partnerships with the government and full participation of the civil society and disabled persons' organizations. The ILO is involved in the analysis of the legal framework related to professional rehabilitation and employment of persons with disabilities, where overarching barriers for full inclusion are heavily present even after eight years of implementation of the Law on Professional Rehabilitation and Employment of Persons with Disabilities. Participation at the labour market remains low, the statistics of the job-seekers with disabilities remains questionable and active labour market programmes represent only 0.01 per cent of GDP. Only 12.4 per cent of persons with disabilities are economically active, with the largest category living on pensions or as dependents (20.5 per cent). The unfavorable labour market situation results from low level inclusion measures as well as high dependency. For employers, persons with disabilities still form largely unrecognized labour pool and they do not have sufficient knowledge and competencies to employ and successfully manage or recognize the potential of persons with disabilities as employees. The ILO is thus focusing on working with the responsible ministry and the National Employment Service and try to provide some guidance on how the legal framework and the policy tools could be improved. It also works with the Serbian Association of Employers on the raising of awareness and competencies for employment of job-seekers with disabilities.

Project symbol

SRB/18/01/UND

Admin unit

DWT/CO-Budapest

Start date

01/01/2018

End date

31/12/2019

Total allocation

24610

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

24487

Development Partners

Multi Partner Trust Fund Office, UNDP

Country/Countries

Serbia

Outcomes

Outcome 7: Adequate and effective protection at work for all