INTERVENTION Dienita Br'6vak / Centre for Democracy and Human Rights MONTENEGRO A GENDA ITEM # 5: Challenges and problems encountered in the practical implementation of the Declaration Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Dzenita Brcvak. I speak on behalf of the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights — CEDEM, an NGO from Montenegro. I will talk today about the social exclusion of Roma and Egyptian community in Montenegro, in particular the lack of adequate research on their overall socio-economic situation and the limited effect of social policies implemented to date. This situation is most relevant to Draft Recommendations no. 25, 27 and 28: We believe that the systematic conduct of adequate, ethnically sensitive research is of an essential importance for the Government to be fully aware of the specific needs and challenges of any minority group and particularly in this case the Roma and Egyptians. The Government of Montenegro has shown a clear commitment to addressing the issues of Roma and Egyptian minority and has adopted a number of legal and strategic provisions1. These provisions were, however, not drafted based on updated, precise and comprehensive research data. In particular where data does exist, there is no mechanism for correlating different information. Therefore, there is no analysis which actually connects the system of social protection to the causes of social exclusion of this population. Further, without proper research; there is no measure of sustainable results in the practice; this undermines the accountability of these measures undertaken for the benefit of Roma and Egyptians. A comprehensive approach to Social Inclusion of the Roma, as practiced in other countries, would for example have been better able to identify the issue of the need for possession of personal documents and being registered citizen, which are obligatory preconditions for exercising the