Three-year old Andjela from a village near the municipality of Mali Zvornik in West Serbia could not go to kindergarten – because she lives in a remote mountain village, and there is no-one to drive her there and also because the overcrowded kindergarten did not have a place for her. Another 40 children from several villages in the area, like Andjela, could not have playtime and early childhood education with their peers.
The total amount of EU funding in TENT since 2000 is around €200 million. With that assistance, the emission of solid particles into the air has been reduced six times, and the modernisation of facilities achieved a 4.2 million ton reduction in the use of coal. Annual production of electric power in TENT has increased by 400 megawatts, and energy efficiency has increased by 12percent thanks to the assistance of the European Union.
An unusual space in a hospital building 150km south of Belgrade. The walls are a gentle shade of pink, spotlessly clean corridors, a nice atmosphere. At the end of a long hall way on the right there is a space for a future living room and a modern kitchen. All patient rooms have two beds and a bathroom. Kind and caring medical staff dedicated to seriously ill patients. This is the image of the Department of Palliative Care in the General Hospital in Cuprija. This Department was renovated six months ago with the financial support of the Ministry of Health. Equipment for the units was purchased through the project “Development of Palliative Care Services in Serbia,” funded by the European Union (EU), and employees were trained and gained new knowledge and skills to deal with palliative care patients.
One doctor and seven nurses have been taking special care of patients suffering from terminal illnesses in the area of Cacak in the last six months. In the Palliative Care Unit at the General Hospital in Cacak, Dr. Danka Dragicevic and her colleagues have dedicated themselves to the patients and their families 24 hours a day. There are no specified visiting hours in the Unit, visitors can come at any time and stay as long as they wish. Doors depicting open arms and butterflies are always open to family members to visit their loved ones who receive around the clock care. While in Serbia palliative care has been developing for over a decade, the major progress in this field was achieved in the last three years with the financial support of the European Union (EU) through the project “Development of Palliative Care in Serbia”, financially and strategically supported by the Ministry of Health.
Organised crime is a worldwide problem; to tackle it, strong international cooperation is required. In the Western Balkans, countries need to build the appropriate structures and experience to investigate and prosecute complex criminal groups in an international context.
The 2011 World Disability Report states that some 95 million children are living with a disability across the globe. According to UNICEF, the Serbian society has traditionally shown intolerance towards this group, with two thirds of children with disabilities not attending school. Clearly, public perceptions needed to change.
In the current era of rapid technological development, innovation is considered crucial for a stable and knowledge-based economy. Serbia has been quick to realise this and in 2011 launched “The Innovation Fund” to promote innovation in the fields of science and technology.
The wood industry in Serbia has great potential for development. The country has a plentiful supply of high quality raw base materials and a pool of workers skilled in processing wood to form finished wood products, furniture and paper. In recent years, however, this sector of the country’s economy has been hampered by outdated equipment, scattered resources and a lack of expertise in the latest sector-specific skills, such as computer-aided design and manufacturing and coating.
Serbian prisons suffer from serious overcrowding. According to 2011 data from the country’s Administration for Execution of Penitentiary Sanctions (AEPS), its prisons house approximately 11,000 detainees, nearly 5,000 more inmates that they can officially collectively accommodate. The prison population has been growing steadily since the 1990s and this growth looks unlikely to abate in the near future. The overcrowding has meant that many educational programmes for prisoners have been cut and their prospects for finding work upon release significantly reduced. This leads to increased re-offending among detainees, and the continued over-population of prisons.
Got a great business idea? If so, you might be in need of support and networking opportunities to help get it off the ground. In Serbia, female entrepreneurs, who still form a minority in the business world, often turn to the Belgrade-based Association of Business Women in Serbia (ABW) for such assistance. Established in 1998, this women-run organisation promotes female entrepreneurship within the community and among policy-makers, and also helps its members find the technical support they might need to make their business a success.
