The United Nations Development Programme and the Ministry of Regional Development and Tourism, in partnership with the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Association of Energy Auditors for Buidlings (AAEC) and the Romanian Green Building Council (RoGBC) and local partners- 6 municipalities in Dolj (Calafat, Craiova) and Hunedoara (Calan, Petrila, Petrosani, Vulcan) is implementing the GEF-financed project “Improving the Energy Efficiency in Low-Income Households and Communities in Romania”. Within this framework, the second session of training of technical staff of local partners and other municipalities in the region will take place on Friday, 18 May 2012, in Craiova, Hotel Europeca.

The training session aims at improving the technical knowledge of civil servants of local authorities/municipalities regarding measures and policies to increase the energy efficiency of buildings, using preponderantly locally available, sustainable materials. The training materials have been prepared by instructors with good experience in the field of energy efficiency and building materials from AAEC and the project staff of UNDP and MDRT. The agenda of this event is available here(romanian only).

The first session of training took place in November 2011 in Petrosani. These training sessions are distinct activities within the second component of the project, out of its four directions of intervention, whose main overall impact will be the reduction of GHG emissions with ca. 667,000 t CO₂ eq by the end of the project in 2015.

The United Nations Development Programme and the European Commission support the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Bucharest, in organizing the 3rd Ryszard Kapuscinski Lecture on International Development. The event will benefit from the presence of Mr. Owen Barder who will give a lecture on “Development, Complexity and Innovation: Joys and Anguishes of Innovation in International Development”. Mr. Owen Barder is senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and the Director for Europe, and former Economic Affairs Adviser to the UK Prime Minister. He is also an influential blogger in the field of international development, hosting a development podcast at http://DevelopmentDrums.org.

The event will be held on Tuesday, 15^th May 2012, at Hotel Radisson Blu, 63-81 Calea Victoriei Blvd, Bucharest, at 18.00, and it will be streamed live at http://www.facebook.com/kapu.lectures/app_196506863720166, at 18.00 EEST/17.00 CET. Due to the limited number of available seats, you are kindly asked to confirm your participation by Monday, 14th of May at prorise@fspub.unibuc.ro or by phone +40 723 630 040 (attn. Luciana Alexandra Ghica, event coordinator). 

The Government of Romania – Department for Interethnic Relations (DRI), the Center for Institutional Analysis and Development (CADI) and the Roma Civic Alliance for Romania (ACRR) with support from UNDP Romania organized in Bucharest, on April 11th, 2012, the forum “Taking social economy for Roma to the market”.  The event took place within the framework of the project “Social Economy – a solution for the development of Roma communities in Romania”, POSDRU/69/6.1/S/34922.

The forum offered practitioners, community leaders, policy makers and the business community the opportunity to have open discussions on the state of social economy for socially disadvantaged groups from Romania (especially the Roma) and the measures needed to pave the way towards future prosperity.

Aiming to address the relevance of social economy for the improvement of the socio-economic status of Roma communities from Romania, the agenda included two plenary sessions that addressed topics such as market partners of social enterprises, the relationship between social capital and community development, pricing policies and the replicability of good business ideas. Over 100 participants interacted and shared experiences on developing the market chain for social products and social services, as well as on developing social franchises and a social stock exchange. 

The forum also hosted the launch of the “Guidelines for good practices on setting-up social enterprises for Roma communities”, a useful tool for all those aiming to  set-up or develop social enterprises in Romania, especially within Roma communities. Designed to increase the practical impact of the project within Roma communities, the guidelines focus on the main phases of planning a social enterprise, from the start of such an endeavor to the presentation of the legal operational framework. In order to be useful, these guidelines include legislation elements that are mandatory for the set-up of each type of social enterprise, as well as the necessary documents.