Beneficiaries The social analysis and pilot projects currently are focusing on the following groups: - vulnerable groups, i.e. children, widows, unprotected women and children at risk of human trafficking, former combatants, etc.;
- ethnic minorities;
- refugees and displaced people and their hosting communities, and
- youth, in particular, unemployed and youth at risk of social exclusion. | 
Roma Children |
Expected Outputs and Activities The Social Development Initiative finances: (i) small, innovative pilot projects to test new approaches to support integration of socially excluded groups and conflict prevention, and (ii) studies and analysis aimed at better understanding the sources of tension and conflict, and the situation of marginal and socially excluded groups. The studies are aimed to support policy recommendations and identification of programs that promote social cohesion. The lessons learned from the pilot projects and findings of the studies will be incorporated into World Bank Country Assistance Strategies of concerned SEE countries. Under the SDI with World Bank financing, the following activities were implemented: - an assessment of the medium term social impact of the refugee crisis in Albania; - launching of a Children and Youth Development Project in FYR of Macedonia, aimed at youth groups from different ethnic backgrounds; - a social assessment -- as part of the Croatia Poverty Assessment -- aimed at recommending measures to improve the conditions of minorities, and at facilitating refugee reintegration; - a multi-sectoral social and institutional assessment in Kosovo aimed at filling the current knowledge gap on urban and rural issues, community level institutions, mechanisms of social exclusion and conflict within and amongst communities; - local level institution studies in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania; and - a Croatia Refugee return pilot project. More broadly, the SDI may include the following areas of analysis and design of pilot projects: Resolving issues related to displaced population and refugees: - assess the social or economic policies that can facilitate the return of displaced people or refugees to their area of origin;
- assess the main worries of the refugees related to their future return;
- undertake preliminary mapping of the key issues that refugees will have to face when they return;
- identify the most sensitive social issues that donors and the World Bank will have to face if they had to support a program for refugee return;
- assess and monitor the impact of the refugee displacement flow on the hosting populations, the stress it creates on local communities, and the areas where support is most needed; | 
Kosovo Refugees Returning home |
- assess the social conditions of the refugees and their relations with the communities that host them to identify risks of tensions and conflicts between social groups. Improve the understanding of the coping mechanisms of both the refugees and the local communities, as well as the leadership structures that refugee communities have recreated in the host countries. Integrating social inclusion concerns in post conflict reconstruction: - identify ways to better address post-war traumas among the vulnerable population;
- identify vulnerability issues linked to past conflict;
- identify actions and policies to reduce human abuse and violence linked to the process of social exclusion;
- provide a special focus on gender and children in the vulnerability analysis;
- identify approaches to deal with disarmament of civilians, reinsertion assistance for former soldiers or militia, including counseling and training programs;
- explore the potential contribution of Albanians and other Diaspora now living in Europe, in the reconstruction process. In particular, identify policy and programs to facilitate their return or their participation in economic reconstruction.
- identify possible economic, social and cultural activities aimed at promoting inter-ethnic dialogue and reconciliation. Improve the prospects for youth, especially unemployed youth - identify innovative approaches to stimulate interaction between youth in the various countries of the region and provide them with the means to communicate, exchange and acquire a broad perspective on social, economic and cultural opportunities opened by a regional approach to the development of SEE;
- identify and pilot specific programs to deal with issues of violence, drug abuse and human trafficking among youth of the region. | 
Unemployed Youth in Prizren, Kosovo |
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