Serbia: Gazela Resettlement Action Plan

In November 2007, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development ("EBRD" or the "Bank") signed a loan with the Public Enterprise Roads of Serbia ("PERS") for the financing of the approach roads to Gazela Bridge and a section of the Belgrade bypass (the "Project").  Parallel financing has been provided by the European Investment Bank ("EIB").  At the time of the Project's preparation, a mixed community of affected people were located under Gazela Bridge and, as a result of the urgent need to rehabilitate the bridge, a resettlement action plan (the "RAP") has been approved by the Serbian authorities and is in the process of being implemented.
The Ministry of Labour and Social Policy of the Republic of Serbia now wishes to engage a consultant (the "Consultant") to assist and support them in implementing the RAP (the "assignment").
The scope of services to be provided can be broadly categorised into (a) capacity building for the Ministry and municipalities, and (b) support in the management and supervision of the resettlement process.

Capacity building: this includes, but is not limited to the following activities.
- Provision of daily support to the Ministry in implementing the Gazela RAP including the recommendations of the audits carried out in February 2010.
- Capacity building of civil servants and other relevant ministry and municipal staff, including social workers, to implement the Gazela RAP in line with international best practice (to ensure sustainability for future resettlement projects).
- Organisation of regular meetings and coordination of activities of various stakeholders (agencies, institutions, organisations) involved in the resettlement process.
- Maintenance of regular contact with all affected families and regular reviews of the status of each family so as to determine any changes in needs and develop individual case files for each affected family.
- Management of short-term activity plans, together with the Ministry and municipal staff, which will include detailed activities, associated costs, implementation schedules, etc to ensure the timelines defined by the February 2010 audit.
- Management of the updating of the database containing information about families / settlements.
- Development of reporting formats which will include narrative and financial information regarding the resettlement process.
- Development of a monitoring system, defining performance indicators and undertaking regular monitoring activities.
- Provision of recommendations to the Ministry for continued improvements.
Management and supervision of the resettlement process: this includes working on issues such as:

1. Grievance mechanism
2. Improvement of the quality of housing
3. Improvement of access to infrastructure
4. Documentation - regularly monitoring to ensure every person has the required documents to be eligible for social welfare and assisting families to obtain the documents, in the event of new-borns
5. Social welfare rights
6. Other needs, disability, material assistance, medication, etc
7. Access to education
8. Access to employment
9. Coordination of humanitarian aid and fundraising

Supervision: including the following activities.

1. Developing indicators, both quantitative and qualitative, for each of the activities/issues listed above.
2. Developing and agreeing monitoring plans and schedules for each of the stakeholders, including the Ministry, the EBRD and the EIB.
3. Following up on all issues identified in the monitoring reports, with recommendations for continued improvements.

News source: EBRD link: article