Research on the Use of Development Funds for the Child Opportunities Programme Office of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

The aim of the research was to examine the impact of developments funded by domestic and European Union resources on the opportunities available to people living in disadvantaged localities, with a particular focus on child poverty. The research itself was based on case studies conducted in 15 localities; the main criteria for selecting the localities under study were their disadvantaged status and the relatively high proportion of development funds utilised.

Among the dimensions determining child poverty, we primarily examined projects implemented in the fields of public education and employment: we analysed the types of projects, the problems arising during implementation, and the successful and less effective solutions.

The most common causes of failure identified were a misinterpretation of needs, the prioritisation of individual interests over the community’s interests, irrational choices by decision-makers to preserve the settlement’s status, the deliberate exclusion of the most vulnerable from programmes, the deliberate isolation of the poorest (typically Roma), and, simultaneously, the unstoppable process of ghettoisation.

As lessons from the case studies, we considered it important to highlight two points: in the interests of more targeted development, universality should be reconsidered in relation to the target group; however, the integration of those living in exclusion is better served by settlement-level strategies rather than development plans for larger units.