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Calendar Updated: September 5, 2017
MDTF Activities > Ensuring funding for victim support services

Ensuring funding for victim support services

Historically, victims have been largely ignored and forgotten. In recent years, there has been increasing political recognition of the need to take action, but this has not been matched with sufficient and equivalent allocation of existing resources. In ensuring financing for functioning of victim support systems, states have at their disposal, and regularly use, a number of tools to raise funds. From taxation and loans to privatization and soliciting donations from private individuals, States resorting to a number of different approaches to fund various aspects of their functioning. The selection of which particular tool will be used in any given situation is a matter of policy decisions that only States, within the framework of any national legal order, can make.

The MDTF JSS team explored opportunities for funding victim support system in Serbia without introduction of additional burden to the budget. The Report analyses the experiences of Finland, France and the United Kingdom, to describe how funding is ensured towards respect, protection and fulfilment of the rights of victims, regardless of whether it concerns budgets from generic or specific sources. The three countries were selected due to their long experience in the use of different funding mechanisms and the success of those mechanisms in establishing stable funding sources for victim services. Each of the funding schemes operates in specific legal, political and social environment, which has a strong influence on their development and functioning.

The Report looks into the funding mechanisms in the three countries observed whilst also taking stock of the situation in Serbia. In doing so, it identifies potential problems when seeking to implement a funding solution. Recognizing that scarce resources must be divided between many equally important priorities, the Report aims to identify alternative sources or methods for funding that are already in place in Serbia to direct them towards  victim support services.

The full text of the Report is available here.