Czech Government approves social exclusion strategy for 2016-2020

The Czech Government has adopted a document focused on addressing the existence of socially excluded localities and preventing the creation of new ones, including introducing a system for regularly monitoring the phenomenon of social exclusion in collaboration with all of the relevant ministries. According to the most recent research published by the Czech Labor and Social Affairs Ministry in 2015, there are between 95 000 and 115 000 socially excluded persons living in the Czech Republic concentrated in 606 socially excluded localities.

Compared to 2006, the number of socially excluded persons has increased by anywhere from two-fifths to one-half, and the number of socially excluded localities has risen by almost 80 %. The Government adopted its Strategy to Combat Social Exclusion at today's session in response to this state of affairs.

The Government has established specific aims in the areas of security, housing, family support, social services and social work, education and employment that it wants to achieve by 2020. The topics of debt and health are newly elaborated in the Strategy, forgotten areas that are essential to addressing socially excluded localities.

"If we want to effectively address social exclusion and reduce the number of socially excluded localities, it is first and foremost essential to know how socially excluded localities and the number of persons in them change over time. That is why, in collaboration with other ministries, we want to establish a system for the regular monitoring of the phenomenon of social exclusion throughout the entire territory of the republic, which will not only make it easier for us to address it in time, but also to use more effectively-targeted instruments," said Czech Minister for Human Rights, Equal Opportunities and Legislation Jiří Dienstbier.

The Strategy includes the aim of producing an analysis of the public administration's competencies in the area of social inclusion in order to identify any eventual "blank spaces" so that adjustments or the creation of legislation can be approached on that basis. Specific measures for achieving the specific strategic aims will be presented in the form of an Action Plan for the Strategy to Combat Social Exclusion, which will be submitted to the Government in July 2016.