Social exclusion: EC programme on economic and social integration of less privileged persons, "Poverty 3"

OBJECTIVE: to describe the projects implemented under the POVERTY 3 programme after 5 years in operation (1989-1994) and, by evaluating the projects described, to help secure approval of the next programme to fight exclusion and promote solidarity (1994-99). CONTENT: this final report takes stock of the implementation of the POVERTY 3 programme during the period from 1989 to 1994. This programme was designed to support efforts being made in this area by the Member States. With a total budget of ECU 55 million, it supported and funded pilot projects to promote innovative methods and policies to prevent and combat poverty and exclusion. The main feature of the programme was its resolutely multidimensional approach to social exclusion and the way in which it focused on strategies to bring about the economic and social integration of less privileged people on the basis of public-private partnerships and the active participation of the people in question. Its objective was to promote experiments with innovative strategies for fighting poverty and to help identify good practices, stimulate national policies and foster public debate in this area. POVERTY 3 focused on some forty local projects in various Member States, with transnational impetus providing a dynamic European dimension. It also supported research and study projects. Local projects received Community cofinancing throughout the programme, together with financial support from national, regional or local authorities and the private sector. The programme supported 2 main types of project: . 30 relatively important "model actions" run by local public-private partnerships determined to implement a coherent joint strategy to fight poverty (ECU 1.5 million per project over 5 years); . 12 "innovative initiatives" or micro-projects exploring suitable responses to the situation of groups subject to specific forms of isolation (ECU 250,000 per project over five years). The Commission document also refers to the presentation in September 1993 of a mid-term report on the implementation of this programme, the second part of which contained a proposal for a new programme to fight exclusion and promote solidarity (1994-1999). This proposal is currently being discussed by the Council (COM(93)435). The Commission hopes that the project evaluation in the present report and its conclusions on the advantages of a specific programme (and, more importantly, of its multidimensional approach to exclusion) will encourage the Council to approve its new proposal. The Commission considers that a specific programme to fight exclusion has an undeniable added value because it compares the experiences and initiatives of the Member States which it engenders and raises awareness of the phenomenon of exclusion in other Community policies.�