Commissioner for the Protection of Equality Brankica Jankovic spoke at the regional conference “The Future of the Welfare State at Western Balkans”.

Commissioner stressed, as a panel “Long Term Care Policies” moderator, that the challenges of Western Balkans welfare states are specific and even more expressed than in more developed countries, because of unfavorable social-economic conditions, high emigration rate and aging population that are mutual problem of the countries in the region. She emphasized that issues of care system funding and coordination between all stakeholders are among the most important ones for the better functioning of social care system. There can be no welfare state without proper care for all members of the society and long term care system is an important segment of this concept, concluded Commissioner.

Panel participants were senior researcher at Institute for Economic Research from Ljubljana Valentina Prevolnik Rupel, researcher of Center for Social Policy from Belgrade Katarina Stanic, researcher from Institute of Public Finances from Zagreb Marijana Badjun and researches from Analitica from Sarajevo Mirna Jusic.

Goal of this panel was to exchange experiences and good practice examples from the Western Balkans region countries regarding the improvement of legislative and efficiency of long term social care systems through defining of key challenges and ways for their overcoming.

Conference “The Future of the Welfare State at Western Balkans” has gathered over 200 stakeholders from Western Balkans and EU member countries, development partners, civil society organizations, representatives of academic community, social partners in order to work together on the constitution of regional agenda of welfare state that would influence the existing processes aimed to sustainable reforms in the region. Conference was organized by Center for the Social Policy.