Max (Maksymilian) Fras

Recommendations on youth policy governance and coordination in Georgia - research conducted for the Parliament of Georgia and UNDP Georgia in 2019

Online version here:

http://parliament.ge/ge/ajax/downloadFile/126708/2019_09_17_Recommendations_on_Youth_Agencies_Structured_Dialogue_Final_draft

The paper analyses the current state of volunteering policy and volunteering activities in Georgia, including the historical context, administration and governance of volunteering, policy frameworks, international volunteering schemes and skills recognition.

Published as a contribution to EU Youth Wiki, Chapter 2

This paper analyses youth policy governance in Georgia, including a review of target populations, national youth law and strategy, decision-making processes, evidence base, funding, cross-border and international co-operation and current debates regarding youth and youth policy (as of September 2017)

This article investigates the relationship between closer integration into the European Union and the vitality and public presence of religion in three relatively recent accession states: Poland, Hungary and Romania. Using Moyser's (T. Moyser, Politics and Religion in the Modern World, London, Routledge, 1991) model of five levels of political secularisation, we find that there is evidence of growth of religious influence in public life in each of these societies between 1989 and 2007, while using World Values Survey data we find that different patterns of religious vitality are exhibited: growth in Romania, decline from a high level in Poland, and decline from a modest level in Hungary. We argue that to explain this religious ‘re-publicisation’ (growth in the public presence of religion) and different patterns of religious vitality, it is necessary to move beyond secularisation theory to a model which views the social processes identified as underlying secularisation not as the direct cause of decline in religious vitality, but rather as second-order factors creating conditions which can tend, depending on intermediate variables, as much towards growth in public presence of religion as to decline.

The Eastern Partnership Youth in Action Window (EPYW) under the Youth in Action Programme was  set  up  for  the  period  2012
- 2013  to  address  identified  needs  of  young  people  in  Eastern  Partnership  countries  (emplo yability,  skills  development,  lifelong  learning,  social  inclusion  and  active  citizenship) through  the  promotion  of  regional  cooperation  between  policy  institutions,  youth
organisations,  youth workers and youth populations. EPYW aims to achieve this goal by offering more non-formal learning opportunities  to  young  people,  with  a  special  focus  on  young  people  with  fewer  opportunities,  to enhance their skills, competences and active participation in society. The main objective of this assignment is to evaluate the on-going EPYW regional programme and to
provide recommendations for the design of a future 2015
-2020 regional programme for disadvantaged youth  with  a  focus  on  their  social  and  economic  needs.  Geographically  the  scope  of  the  evaluation  covers the six  Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.
The Final Report focuses on presenting the main conclusions of the evaluation process, including an evaluation  of  the  EPYW
implementation  and recommendations on  the  design  of  a  future  regional  programme for disadvantaged youth, taking into account existing support for youth by the international donor community (including the EU) in the beneficiary countries.

The  ‘Eastern  Partnership  Youth  Policy  Analytic  Report’  (EYPAR)  was  prepared  between  September and December 2015, following a request
by the European Commission (DG NEAR)  to provide a study on youth policy developments in the EaP region. 
The report was developed  under the framework of the Eastern Partnership Youth Regional Unit Project (EPYRU), and is based  on  data  available  from  this  project, as  well  as  other  relevant  sources  identified  for  this  purpose.

The  report  includes  information  on  the  current  legal  frameworks  for  youth  policies  in  each  of  the  six  EaP  countries (Republic  of  Armenia, Republic  of  Azerbaijan,  Republic  of  Belarus, Georgia,  Republic  of  Moldova, and Ukraine) and  analyses  the  current  situation  on  mainstreaming youth issues across relevant policy spheres in EaP region, with a particular focus on  youth  employment  policies.  These are accompanied  by  references  and  examples  of  good practice  of  cross-sectoral  cooperation and  recommendations  on  youth  policy  development  and possible measures of EU support.

The current document provides a brief summary of the information contained in the EYPAR.

The 'Getting Across' seminar, organised by the partnership between the European Commission and the Council of Europe in the field of youth, was hosted by the Government of Montenegro (Directorate for Youth and Sport) in Budva, Montenegro from 26 to 27 October 2016.

It brought together 56 participants, including speakers and facilitators, mostly from the Western Balkans, involved in youth policy making and implementation. The seminar’s main aim was to provide young people in the Western Balkans with more and better opportunities for receiving integrated support of cross-sectoral, integrated youth services, enabling active participation of young people in society and reversing the marginalisation of those more in need for support towards their social inclusion.

The purpose of the report is to describe the main findings of the seminar, including an overview of the history of the project, background research, objectives, key institutions and people involved in its planning and implementation, seminar activities and conclusions from key discussions held during the event, notably the cross-sectoral youth policy-making guidelines.

The publication presents key youth policy developments in Eastern Partnership countries and in the Russian Federation. It also focuses on challenges that young people and youth organisations from the region face, and presents selected foreign mechanisms of youth policy support.