Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, Skender Reçica, hosted today representatives of the World Bank, headed by Stefanie Brodmann.
Supervision and implementation of the social assistance scheme, as well as the ways of cooperation between MLSW and World Bank were the main topics of discussion in this meeting. Minister Reçica called for support in terms of capacity building of the Centers for Social Work, which recently, with the Government decision, were assigned as responsible for carrying out the poverty test.
Also, the minister seeked for cooperation on resolving the issue of the specific grant for municipalities, in a manner that would be defined by law.
The World Bank representatives assured Minister Reçica that they will support MLSW in all the necessary and priority issues regarding social assistance.
As a topic of discussion was also employment and support for reforms in the new Labor Law, where they agreed that co-operation should be oriented in that way , so that they will take the best practices from developed countries and incorporate them into the new Labor Law.
Minister Reçica notifies the participants regarding the objectives of the Government to include as much as possible citizens in the active measures of the labor market, by decreasing this way the number of beneficiaries of social assistance.
Also, it was discussed about the pension schemes and the need for a pension system reform, including the legal framework that regulates it, as well as the creation of an electronic database for all files for which the ministry requested cooperation from the World Bank.
The two groups agreed that, by the end of June this year, the ideas discussed in this meeting and the possibilities of cooperation will be concrete through concrete actions.