COOPERATION IN SOCIAL SPHERE

On May 21-23, 2001, St. Petersburg held the international conference "Introducing in the society, preventive measures, development – social dimen-sion in the focus". The Conference was the result of fruitful co-operation in the social sphere between the European Union, its member-states and Russia. Its target was to develop further bilateral and multi-sided co-operation aimed at support of social transformations in Russia.

This Conference was the main event in the project of co-operation between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sweden and the Ministry of Labour and Social Development of the Russian Federation and the European Union. SaintPetersburg became the place of this Conference not by chance. Here the major international project Co-operation on improving social work in Saint-Petersburg is being realised since 1998. From the Russian side the partner responsible for its practical issues is the Committee on labour and social protection for citizens, St. Petersburg Administration and from the Swedish side it is the Higher Social School of Stockholm State University.

There were 250 participants working in the Conference, 100 of them being representatives of EU countries and 150 being leaders and heads of Ministries and departments of Russian Federation, and also the leaders from the regions of Russia. Among participants there were Minister of Labour and Social Development of Russian Federation, Minister of Health and Social Insurance of Sweden, the Vice-president of the World Bank on international connections and connections with United Nations, representatives of European Union, UNISEF, MOT, Swedish Investment Development Agency and others. In the Conference the focus was put on the questions of social development, arranging address social assistance for the citizens, social services for families having children, elderly people, and disabled, drugs and alcohol abused. The discussions of the current and recently finished projects of co-operation took place. Its participants were introduced to the work of the institutions of social sphere of St. Petersburg.