At the third sitting of the Poverty Reduction Committee held on 9 October, Member of Parliament Rajko Djuric presented the project for poverty reduction in Serbia.

At the beginning, the Committee sitting was chaired by the Committee vice-chairperson Milica Vojic-Markovic, who suggested that the agenda be expanded to include the item of electing a Committee Chairman in accordance with the agreement of the Deputies’ Groups at the National Assembly. In accordance with the achieved agreement the Committee members released the former Committee Chairman, Slavisa Topalovic, from duty and elected Member of Parliament Bojan Milovanovic from the SPS Deputy Group, as the new Committee Chairman.

The newly elected Committee Chairman chaired the rest of the sitting.

In his address, Member of Parliament Rajko Djuric pointed out that 800 000 Roma live in Serbia, and almost half of this number are children who, according to all indicators, live in poverty. He stressed the importance of the Decade of Roma covering the 2005 to 2015 period and comprising eight million people in Southeast European countries, as well as the fact that in 2008 Serbia takes over the chairing of the Decade. He stressed the necessity to realise the main goals of the Decade – education, housing issue and health and social insurance of the Roma, as well as the importance of projects and programmes of Roma inclusion.

During the discussion the Committee members voiced various proposals concerning the manner in which the Committee can contribute to the poverty reduction in Serbia, regardless of the nationality of the poor, with a special focus on children in poverty and the uneven regional development of Serbia.