To facilitate the access of women, ethnic minorities and persons with special needs to local elections, the authorities each year seek to adopt new national programs. Inclusion and diversity are desiderata that can be achieved only by implementing such programs, the head of the Public Policy and Legislation Division of the Ombudsman’s Office Svetlana Rusu stated in a public debate hosted by IPN.

Svetlana Rusu mentioned several of the national programs designed for particular groups of people so as to facilitate the access of these to local elections and the decision-making process. “I refer to the adoption by the Cabinet of a national program on the ensuring of gender equality for 2023-2027. There are a number of ambitious measures that the Cabinet undertook to implement until 2027 so that all the woman and men enjoy equal rights and are involved in the decision-making process to the same extent. There was also adopted a national program to ensure active and healthy aging for 2023-2027. This program is intended for another category of persons – older people who consider they are stigmatized when they reach a particular age,” stated Svetlana Rusu.

She noted that another national program is under consideration. “Work is now done on a new program of actions for integrating the persons with disabilities. So, it hasn’t been yet designed, but is under public consultation and we will again come up with proposals and hope that these will be taken into account. We want measures aimed at persons with disabilities to be taken so that all the barriers with which these persons meet are eliminated,” noted the expert.

In this regard, Svetlana Rusu said that civil society and the Ombudsman’s Office continuously analyze the EU directives and the European legislative framework so that the measure taken at national level meet the European standards. Nevertheless, these measures not always center on the observance of human rights and the ensuring of equal access for all the categories, including vulnerable groups.

“We see particular problems and these are related to implementation. It is not good when the local public authorities are entrusted with tasks only. The financial aspect is another impediment. The local budgets are insufficient. The actions are implemented insufficiently or partially. Also, some of the national programs still contain such provisions as “financial allocations within the limits of the available funds of the responsible authorities” and an assessment is not carried out. We often recommend the authorities to estimate the necessities and to identify the source from which these costs will be covered,” said Svetlana Rusu.

The public debate entitled “Participation of women, ethnic minorities and persons with special needs in local elections” was staged by IPN News Agency as part of the project “Stimulation of discussion in the mass media about traditional particularities of local elections and the need for Europeanization” which is supported by Soros Foundation Moldova.