The stages of the HDSE Project

The Project’s objectives were pursued by the Council of Europe through major efforts on the following fronts.

The setting up of work structures to optimise the involvement of the various partners to the Project :
· a Patronage Committee made up of leading European personalities, whose role was to contribute experience, knowledge and contacts;
· a Partnership Committee comprising the Council of Europe, international organisations, financial partners and leading NGOs;
· a Co-ordinating Committee which involved representatives from more than ten Council of Europe Steering Committees and was responsible for gathering information and co-ordinating the contributions sent by the groups concerned.

The preparation of the Project’s research report by Ms Katherine Duffy, the project’s research director.

When writing the Report, she drew upon the individual reports and questionnaire responses of the network of 17 research correspondents. The individual reports were prepared in two stages: first, by responding to questionnaires on five policy areas (health, employment, social protection, education and housing), secondly, by preparing country and thematic reports based on the structure of the questionnaires. The Project Report highlights the opportunities and risks inherent in the changing patterns of social exclusion, pinpointing key problems and groups particularly at risk. It concludes that social exclusion is an intrinsic risk in liberal societies, and that governments, which aspire to social cohesion, must give a higher priority to diminution of this risk, and its discontents.

The setting up of thematic working groups to examine the experience of the most vulnerable, the role of grass roots and other representative organisations and the opportunities for sharing good practice, thus shifting the focus of research from analysis of the problem to evaluation of solutions. A series of hearings was organised on the following four themes :
· Legal rights and vulnerable groups;
· Family and personal networks of least advantaged groups;
· The role of civil society in combating poverty and social exclusion;
· Intervention at the local level: public authorities and local communities.

A political awareness-raising initiative took place through the development of thematic conferences :

The Finnish and French governments supported the thematic day on employment and the day on health respectively, and the German working group of federal and regional public social assistance institutions supported the day on housing. The day on education (actually, a three day conference) was supported by the Nikos Poulantzas Society (Greece), and the day on social protection was held in co-operation with the Council of Europe’s European Social Security Committee (CDSS).

The Final Conference

Finally, a major Final Conference was held in Helsinki from 18-20 May 1998, in co-operation with the Finnish authorities, to present and discuss the findings of the HDSE Project :

It brought together over 300 persons, representing all Council of Europe member States and all the partners involved in the HDSE Project. The Conference was also a first concrete follow up to the 2nd Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Council of Europe member States (Strasbourg, 10-11 October 1997), which defined social cohesion as being one of the main areas within which there is scope for immediate advances and practical measures. The Conference adopted a series of proposals for action outlining the priorities of intervention of the Council of Europe in tackling poverty and social exclusion, in partnership with all other relevant actors.