The nongovernmental organizations of Moldova will be able to provide social services alongside the state institutions. Such an opportunity appeared following the implementation of the mechanism for contacting private social service providers, by making amendments to the Law on Public Procurement.

Viorica Dumbraveanu, head of the Family and Child Rights Protection Division of the Ministry of Labour, Social Protection and Family, has told IPN in an interview that the relevant standard documents designed based on a Government Decision define all the stages of the public procurement process, from the submission of the application, presentation of the offer up to the selection of providers and signing of the contract.

Viorica Dumbraveanu said the necessity of contracting social services from NGOs resulted from the increasing number of possible beneficiaries of these services. Many elderly persons remained without care as a result of the migration of their adult children. The social services are also intended for children who remained without parental care as a result of migration and other phenomena when the parents are deprived of parental rights or when the children become orphans following their parents’ death.

“Regretfully, we face such phenomena as domestic violence and trafficking in human beings. We thus need to develop social services. There are many services for these persons provided by the NGOs. Thus, there is no need for the local public authorities to develop the same set of social services,” said Viorica Dumbraveanu.

She also said that a novelty for Moldova is the allocation of identification codes for socials services. Each social service included in the nomenclature of social services will have an identification code, according to international standards and international identification codes. Thus, foreign private providers can take part in the public procurement procedure. Based on this code, they can easier determine what type of social services an authority purchases.