Moldova committed itself to halving the number of children in residential childcare institutions to 6,000 by 2012. After three years of reform, the number of institutionalized children fell from 11,800 to 9,600, Info-Prim Neo reports. The path from commitment to implementation is very long and requires efforts from parties involved, UNICEF representative in Moldova Alexandra Yuster said at a roundtable meeting on March 12. “It is easy to say that we will not allow the children to be institutionalized and will offer them a home environment. In reality, it is very hard to do so,” she stressed. Petru Veverita, executive director of the CASE Social and Economic Investment Foundation that monitored the implementation of the project, said determined efforts were made in 2007 and 2008 when the reform was launched. Several institutions were reorganized then. But in 2009, the actions were stopped when the electoral campaign started. “The major objective of the strategy and national plan for implementing the reform of the residential childcare system worked out in 2007 was to halve the number of children living separately from the family. The efforts made to create and promote the legal and institutional framework were insufficient,” Petru Veverita said. There are 61 residential childcare institutions in Moldova at present. Forty of them are financed by the state, while the rest with money from the local budgets. Six institutions have been closed and 2,374 children reintegrated into the biological or extended families since 2007 until present.