Croatia has lost almost 10 percent of its population in the last twenty years, and some counties have even fewer than every fifth resident, while at the same time Croatia is also aging – more than 22 percent of the population is older than 65, said the State Secretary of the Ministry of Demography and Immigration of the Republic of Croatia, Zeljka Josic.
The Ministry of Demography is cooperating with the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on a project that will help Croatia respond to two decades of demographic challenges and population aging, it was emphasized at the opening conference on Tuesday.
The project “Establishing a Strategic, Legislative and Institutional Framework for the Demographic Revitalization of Croatia”, financed by the European Commission, will support Croatia in establishing a framework for multilevel governance of demographic revitalization and will provide policymakers with skills and tools for evidence-based decision-making on effective demographic revitalization measures.
“Demographic policies that will be created must take into account both the young and the old population, and therefore intergenerational policies are of exceptional importance for the development of Croatia,” stated Josic.
In addition to the legislative framework, through the project, an institutional and strategic framework will be developed that will connect the national, regional, and local levels into a joint planning system so that every county, city, and municipality will have its own demographic measures based on the needs of its people.
The third step of the partnership will be the improvement of data, analytics, and knowledge so that all decisions are supported by evidence, not assumptions, emphasized Josic.
The Head of the Division for Regional Development and Multilevel Governance of the Centre for Entrepreneurship, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Regions and Cities (CFE) of the OECD, Dorothee Allain-Dupre, emphasized that the project will, over the course of two years, help Croatia undertake effective measures concerning demographic changes with the goal of regional development, strengthening territorial attractiveness, and improving quality of life.
“We will assess the laws, institutions, strategies, and coordination mechanisms for demographic policy and identify where they can be improved or reformed,” she stated.
At the same time, she added that, like Croatia, European and OECD countries are also facing a trend of population decline and that urgent measures must be taken to ensure the future.
