Social Investment & Employment Promotion Project (SIEP)

To improve the standard of living of people who are locked in persisting ?pockets? of poverty in Bulgaria, concentrated regionally, among the long-term u nemployed, and among specific ethnic minorities (Roma, Turkish). Because these targeted vulnerable groups su ffer from multiple disadvantages (e.g., exclusion, weak social capital, poor access to markets and basic serv ices, low employment, low income), the project will achieve its objective through complementing the existing, relatively good social protection system by offering a range of instruments, all focused on building the ass ets, individual and communal, of poor and vulnerable people living in these pockets.The Community Infrastructure for Development Initiative (CIDI) component will address issues related to empowerment and integration of targeted communities and of inadequate access to basic infrastructu re and services, by allowing communities to identify and to manage, themselves, development investments of gr eatest local priority. It is expected that the investments will also lay the groundwork for improved market access and human capital development?preconditions to enhancing employment opportunities and reducing poverty . The Bulgarian Active Labor Market Initiative (BALMI) component will identify me dium-term economic and labor trends information and provide active labor services to assist economically disa dvantaged individuals in poor communities to extend and use their human capital productively, particularly in the context of changing economic and labor market conditions.