The Responsible Business Forum (RBF) and Smart Kolektiv organized a webinar on employment of persons with disabilities and other hard-to-employ groups, on Thursday, December 24, 2020, as part of the “SDGs for All” Platform. 

The webinar centered around the SDG 8, Decent Work and Economic Growth, with a focus on sub-objective 8.5, which envisages achievement of full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities and equal pay for work of equal value, by 2030. The webinar placed special emphasis on the employability of people with disabilities and other hard-to-employ groups, which is measured by the indicator – Unemployment rate by gender, age and disability. 

The webinar exposed the representatives of the business sector to the importance of inclusion of persons with disabilities in the work environment and showcased examples of good practice of companies that employ hard-to-employ groups. Part of the webinar was dedicated to the presentation of the project “Business Inclusion”, aimed at creating equal opportunities for employment, and to the presentation of some of the key sections of new National Strategy for Improving the Position of Persons with Disabilities. 

The following panelists spoke at the webinar: Marija Škrbić Dražić (Manpower Group), Ljupka Mihajlovska (former member of the Government of Serbia working group for the improvement the status of persons with disabilities), Milica Mišković (Responsible Business Forum) i  Nevena Đaković (Delhaize Serbia) 

The panelists agreed about the necessity to address this topic at the level of the entire society, as a key precondition for the improvement of the social and economic position of persons with disabilities. They highlighted the need to explore the potentials of digital technologies, as a way to greater inclusion of people with disabilities and other hard-to-employ groups. 

You can watch this webinar at the following LINK   

The webinar was held within the “SDGs for ALL” Platform, supported by the Governments of Switzerland and Germany, and implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH within the Public Finance – 2030 Agenda project. The partners  on project are the Ana and Vlade Divac Foundation, the Center for Higher Economic Studies, the Belgrade Open School, the Center for Democracy Foundation, the Timok Youth Center and the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence.