Good local policy should be built around the real needs of children and families and should support them at every stage of life, says Silvia Georgieva, executive director of the National Association of Municipalities in the Republic of Bulgaria (NAMRB). She spoke at the opening of the annual meeting of local authorities in Albena.
This report follows our earlier story on the start of the meeting, which runs until 13 October and marks 30 years since NAMRB was founded.
The first discussion on the programme, "Local policies in action: how municipalities build a better environment for children and families", took place in the Siy hall of the Paradise Blue hotel. Georgieva said municipalities are closest to people. They see where services are missing, what problems families face and which towns and villages support does not reach.
She used the school to show why coordination matters: if a school notices a problem in a child's family, it must promptly alert the other support systems.
Georgieva said children's wellbeing is one of the most accurate measures of the quality of public decisions, at both national and municipal level. For children to get support, education, healthcare, social services, sport and culture must work together, not each on its own, she said.
At past annual meetings, children's policies were rarely a separate topic. They usually came up in talks about education or demographics, she said. Now more is known about early childhood development, and about the importance of physical safety, education, children's emotional resilience, their sense of belonging and their confidence that their voice matters. For that reason, Georgieva said, children's wellbeing must be at the centre of public decisions.
In her view, institutions still do not work together well enough, either nationally or locally. Every important public decision should come with the question of how it will affect children and families and what the consequences will be in future. Children and young people should also take part in making the policies that affect them, not just be their subject, she said.
Georgieva called on public institutions to speak openly about problems without turning them into labels, and to offer solutions that respect people. She said the words of institutions can create trust and hope.
The organisers want to show that municipalities can do something for children and families even with limited resources.