Youth Policy in Romania

In Romania, the responsibility for youth policy is divided between the central level authorities and the local authorities. Within the limits of the Youth Law, the local authorities are free to develop initiatives, and there is seldom coordination at national level. Moreover, one of the most important instruments used for the implementation of the youth policy, by the Ministry of Youth and Sports, but also by the Ministry of Culture, is the allocation of grants for small projects of youth NGOs (until December 2021) / the Ministry of Family, Youth and Equal Opportunities (since January 2022). The county offices for youth and sports, the cultural student centres, as well as the county offices for culture, the Universities and schools have a large degree of autonomy in establishing their activities and calendars for working with the young people. This strategy ensures the accessibility to youth activities and youth work of a large number of young people from many regions, cities, towns and villages. However, the whole national territory is not covered in the same manner and the level of accessibility to youth activities and youth work varies largely across the country (young people in some cities benefit from a larger number of activities and services compared to other young people). The national coordination in the field is very challenging in the absence of strong monitoring and evaluation mechanisms in the field of youth activities and youth work.

The dedicated institution for youth policy was until December 2021 the Ministry of Youth and Sports, established in 1990. In January 2022 the Ministry of Family, Youth and Equal Opportunities was funded. However, youth policy measures are scattered through other policy domains such as education, social affairs and culture. Since 2001, strategic documents in the field of youth, including the National Strategy in Field of Youth Policy 2015-2020 have been reuniting youth policy general and operational objectives. However, the National Strategy in Field of Youth Policy 2015-2020 was not supported by an action plan, clear budget allocations and a monitoring plan. A new Youth Strategy for the next period was not adopted by the Romanian Government until March 2023. Therefore, coordination between top-level authorities responsible for youth policy is not systematic, and the responsible central authorities in the field of youth lack control over the timely and full implementation of actions to meet the youth policy objectives.