The document discusses integration policies and monitoring in Flanders, Belgium. It notes that integration policies are handled at the regional level, and Flanders has two phases - inburgering for newcomers and integratie for longer-term integration. Inburgering includes language, social, and career training. Integratie focuses on participation, accessibility, and social cohesion. Flanders provides funding to local authorities that implement integration policies and indicators. The local integration monitor uses 34 quantitative indicators from databases on demographics, employment, education, housing, welfare, and participation to help local authorities develop integration policies without additional workload.
How to measure what counts - integration monitoring and indicators
1. Integrating cities – Amsterdam
How to measure what counts - integration
monitoring and indicators
Daphne Costes
Agency for Internal Affaires
Flemish Autority
2. Belgium a brief reminder
• 1 federal state
• 3 communities : Flemish, French & German
• 3 regions : Flanders, Wallonia & Brussels
• Different policies by different authorities
• “Integration” is a competence on regional
level.
3. Integration policy in Flanders
- Inburgering (1st phase of integration):
= a categorial policy (mainly for newcomers)
- Flemish Parliament Act on “Civic Integration”
- Integratie (2nd phase of integration):
= mainly an inclusive policy, however,
categorial when necessary
- Flemish Parliament Act on Integration
4. Inburgering: a specific programme as a first
step
• Coordinated by welcome office
• Consists of:
- Training programme:
› Elementary Dutch course
› Social orientation course
› Career orientation
- Supported by programme
counselling
5. Integration is not something you just do in
en classroom
Encouraging the persons
integrating to:
build up a social network,
to get to know their local town
or community,
to practice their Dutch,
to sign up to become a member of a
local association or sports club,
to take up voluntary work,…
6. Integration: horizontal and inclusive policy
• Focus on the entire society, with special attention to the
targetgroup (1st and 2nd generation + social deprivation
factors)
• 3 main goals
Participation,
Accesibility of organisations and services,
Sociale cohesion.
• Importance of local authorities
7. Local integration policy
• Financing (granting of a subsidy) of local authorities willing
to implement a proactive integration policy
• Financing based on:
Request of the local authority (no obligation),
Conditions: minimal presence of the target group +
problems of social deprivation
Agreement between the Flemish authority and the local
authority (goals, actions, indicators)
→ current situation: 46 local authorities have an
agreement
8. Local integration monitor
• Goal:
To develop a local integration policy based upon a set of
reliable and valid indicators
Not an instrument to evaluate policy
• Selection of indicators:
Environmental indicators, no process indicators
Only quantitative, no qualitative indicators
Collection of data from flemish or federal databases, not
at local level (avoiding extra workload for the local
government)
9. Local integration monitor
• Result:
Set of 34 indicators
On demography, employment, education, housing,
welfare, poverty and participation
Not all indicators were available in 2011
• Form:
A digital report for each community/city
Per indicator:
› A score for each indicator
› A comparison with the average of similar communities/cities
› A comparison with the flemish average
10. Local integration monitor
• Future:
Short term: addition of education indicators
Annual update with the most recent data
Addition with new indicators when databases come
available/accesible
→ http://aps.vlaanderen.be/lokaal/integratiemonitor.html
14. Local integration monitor
Second best operationalisation:
Approaching the official definition as close as possible, taking into
account the available data
