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Earning less than spending or what does it mean to be a retired person in the Republic of Moldova?

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The pensioners of the Republic of Moldova will receive a one-time support payment of 700 lei (about 36 euros) at the begging of January, as a statement of Ministry of Health, Labour and Social Protection announced. The financial support will be granted to all beneficiaries of pensions (employment-based pensions, disability pensions, descendants received pensions, pensions for former military employees, state officials, cultural employees, beneficiaries of state social allowances, etc.) who do not receive a monthly pension of more than 2000 lei (about 104 euros).

Such a payment was granted last year as well and maybe will be granted next year. The questions here are what can a pensioner in Moldova do with this money and what does it mean to be a retired person in this country?

Earnings of retired people

According to the official statistics of the National Social Insurance Authority of the Republic of Moldova, there are 700 467 beneficiaries of pensions, being on record on October 1, 2019. 75.4% of them are represented by the retired persons who receive employment-based pensions, the average amount of it being 1840.56 lei (about 96 euros). 9008 retired persons are granted also a social allowance for aged people of 215.57 lei (about 11 euros) on average.

The situation is even worse when looking at the minimum legal amount of the employment-based pension in the Republic of Moldova, which is 1079.33 lei (about 56 euros), whereas the official subsistence minimum for retired people in the Republic of Moldova was calculated as being 1 726.5 lei (about 90 euros). The average subsistence minimum for the entire population was 2 028.3 lei in the first half of 2019, according to the Nationals Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data.

Moreover, as a study conducted by Platzforma and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Moldova Foundation in 2018 showed, the minimum living wage (the necessary minimum income, taking into consideration the basic needs for a decent life) for a person who resides in the urban area should be not lower than 12 306.8 lei and for the one who resides in the rural area not lower than 11 359.6 lei per month.  Consequently, the minimum income for a retired person, when applying the same principle, should amount 10 072.4 lei (about 524 euros) per month, that being a nine-times higher amount than the current minimum level of the employment-based pension.

As the law of the Republic of Moldova states, the employment-based pensions are calculated from the average monthly income received after January 1, 1999, until the retirement age is reached, taking into account the total contribution period. For the period worked before 1999, only the contribution period is taken into account, being added to the period after 1999. The same formula is applied for everyone, no matter what position was held. What is important is the average wage received during the contributing period and the term the contribution was made.

Therefore, the pensions received in the Republic of Moldova are calculated, starting from 2017, using the following formula:

P = 1.35% x Tc x As

where P is the total amount of pension, 1.35% – the accrual rate for the contribution years after January 1, 1999, Tc – total contribution period (years), As – the average monthly income from which the contribution was paid.

Also, from July 1, 2017, the retirement age started to be gradually increased both for men and women. In 2020, retirement will be at the age of 59 years for women and 63 years for men. Until 2028, the retirement age for women will equalise that of men (63 years), as the National Social Insurance Authority of the Republic of Moldova provided.

Social and health policies for retired people

The members of the Platform for Active Ageing, which is involved in promoting the needs of aged people in public policy documents and supports the elderly to claim their rights, fight against discrimination and overcome poverty, have monitored the implementation of the National Program for Health Promotion for the years 2016-2020 and the National Program in the field of Food and Nutrition for the years 2014-2020. The platform members concluded that these programs do not integrate the needs of elderly people. A mechanism for monitoring and evaluating the programs lacks, as well as a clear designation of the responsible persons in the institutions that implement health policies, that making the programs’ results have no impact on the elderly population, as zdg.md informed.

Another conclusion of the platform was that the National Strategy on Employment for the years 2017-2021 does not reflect progress regarding the employment of elderly people, the actions reported not indicating elements focused on this category of population. According to the Platform for Active Ageing, the employment policies are mainly oriented towards the younger population segments, aged persons being ignored, as their contribution to the development of the society is not recognised.

Social phenomena influencing retirement

Three years ago, a reform of retirement system in the Republic of Moldova was implemented, bringing new conditions of retirement, new ways of calculating pensions, the equalisation of the retirement age (63 years) and the contribution period (34 years) of women with that of men. Still, the retirement system  is not financially sustainable in the long run due to fast ageing of the population and the migration of the workforce, as a study conducted by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Moldova Foundation and the WatchDog.MD Community showed.

The study argued that, over the next few years, there is a risk that fewer people will contribute to the social insurance budget, IPN reports. Oleg Tofilat, the co-author of the study, noted that the even though the average wage increases, the number of employees remains constant, the black economy is shrinking and the retirement age has been raised, the contributions to social insurance have decreased,  as the number of pensioners is rising, while the working population is migrating to other countries.

At the beginning of 2019, there were 558.4 thousand people aged 60 years and over in Moldova, which represented 20.8% of the total number of the population. The share of people aged 60 or more is constantly increasing, as the NBS data shows. In 2019, as compared to 2014, the ageing coefficient of the population registered a 3.3 percentage point increase, which corresponds to a high level of demographic ageing. The average age of the Moldovan population hit 38.7 years in 2019, as compared to 37.2 years in 2014.

On the other hand, 159 118 persons left the country, staying abroad at least 9 months cumulatively, according to the data from 2017. More than 73% of these people were aged between 20 and 59, according to the NBS data.

**

The pensioners of the Republic of Moldova seem to receive an equitable payment when retiring. However, the aged people of Moldova don’t have their interests considered and are often marginalised, ignored or even discriminated. For the majority of aged population the received pension is far from being enough for a decent life. A lot of elderly don’t have enough money for food, medicines, utilities or clothes, all the more for entertainment or travelling. The retirement system is improving, but it is estimated that there will be not enough contributions made by the working force in order to pay the future pensions for the retired people of Moldova. The problem is much more deeper, being connected to some other social phenomena that affect the country, so are the solutions to be found.

Photo: moldova.org

Jurnalistă that speaks English very well. De aia Maria are grijă că prietenii noștri străini să nu piardă nicio informație valoroasă despre actualitatea din Moldova.

Society

“They are not needy, but they need help”. How Moldovan volunteers try to create a safe environment for the Ukrainian refugees

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At the Government’s ground floor, the phones ring constantly, the laptop screens never reach standby. In one corner of the room there is a logistics planning meeting, someone has a call on Zoom with partners and donors, someone else finally managed to take a cookie and make some coffee. Everyone is exhausted and have sleepy red eyes, but the volunteers still have a lot of energy and dedication to help in creating a safe place for the Ukrainian refugees.

“It’s like a continuous bustle just so you won’t read the news. You get home sometimes and you don’t have time for news, and that somehow helps. It’s a kind of solidarity and mutual support,” says Vlada Ciobanu, volunteer responsible for communication and fundraising.

The volunteers group was formed from the very first day of war. A Facebook page was created, where all types of messages immediately started to flow: “I offer accommodation”, “I want to help”, “I want to get involved”, “Where can I bring the products?”, “I have a car and I can go to the customs”. Soon, the authorities also started asking for volunteers’ support. Now they all work together, coordinate activities and try to find solutions to the most difficult problems.

Is accommodation needed for 10, 200 or 800 people? Do you need transportation to the customs? Does anyone want to deliver 3 tons of apples and does not know where? Do you need medicine or mobile toilets? All these questions require prompt answers and actions. Blankets, sheets, diapers, hygiene products, food, clothes – people bring everything, and someone needs to quickly find ways of delivering them to those who need them.

Sometimes this collaboration is difficult, involves a lot of bureaucracy, and it can be difficult to get answers on time. “Republic of Moldova has never faced such a large influx of refugees and, probably because nobody thought this could happen, a mechanism of this kind of crisis has not been developed. Due to the absence of such a mechanism that the state should have created, we, the volunteers, intervened and tried to help in a practical way for the spontaneous and on the sport solutions of the problems,” mentions Ecaterina Luțișina, volunteer responsible for the refugees’ accommodation.

Ana Maria Popa, one of the founders of the group “Help Ukrainians in Moldova/SOS Українці Молдовa” says that the toughest thing is to find time and have a clear mind in managing different procedures, although things still happen somehow naturally. Everyone is ready to intervene and help, to take on more responsibilities and to act immediately when needed. The biggest challenges arise when it is necessary to accommodate large families, people with special needs, for which alternative solutions must be identified.

Goods and donations

The volunteers try to cope with the high flow of requests for both accommodation and products of all kinds. “It came to me as a shock and a panic when I found out that both mothers who are now in Ukraine, as well as those who found refuge in our country are losing their milk because of stress. We are trying to fill an enormous need for milk powder, for which the demand is high and the stocks are decreasing”, says Steliana, the volunteer responsible for the distribution of goods from the donation centers.

Several centers have been set up to collect donations in all regions of Chisinau, and volunteers are redirecting the goods to where the refugees are. A system for processing and monitoring donations has already been established, while the volunteer drivers take over the order only according to a unique code.

Volunteers from the collection centers also do the inventory – the donated goods and the distributed goods. The rest is transported to Vatra deposit, from where it is distributed to the placement centers where more than 50 refugees are housed.

When they want to donate goods, but they don’t know what would be needed, people are urged to put themselves in the position of refugees and ask themselves what would they need most if they wake up overnight and have to hurriedly pack their bags and run away. Steliana wants to emphasise that “these people are not needy, but these people need help. They did not choose to end up in this situation.”

Furthermore, the volunteer Cristina Sîrbu seeks to identify producers and negotiate prices for products needed by refugees, thus mediating the procurement process for NGOs with which she collaborates, such as Caritas, World Children’s Fund, Polish Solidarity Fund, Lifting hands, Peace Corps and others.

One of the challenges she is facing now is the identifying a mattress manufacturer in the West, because the Moldovan mattress manufacturer that has been helping so far no longer has polyurethane, a raw material usually imported from Russia and Ukraine.

Cristina also needs to find solutions for the needs of the volunteer groups – phones, laptops, gsm connection and internet for a good carrying out of activities.

Hate messages

The most difficult thing for the communication team is to manage the hate messages on the social networks, which started to appear more often. “Even if there is some sort of dissatisfaction from the Ukrainian refugees and those who offer help, we live now in a very diverse society, there are different kind of people, and we act very differently under stress,” said Vlada Ciobanu.

Translation by Cătălina Bîrsanu

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#WorldForUkraine – a map that shows the magnitude of the world’s actions against Russian aggression

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The international community and volunteers from all over te world have launched #WorldForUkraine as a platform that shows the magnitude of the world’s actions against the Russian aggression. In a digital world – it is an interactive map of public support of Ukrainians under the hashtag #WorldForUkraine – rallies, flash mobs, protests around the world. In the physical dimension – it is your opportunity to take to the streets and declare: “No to Putin’s aggression, no to war.”

„Today, along with the political and military support, emotional connection with the civilized world and truthful information are extremely important for Ukraine. The power to do it is in your hands. Join the #WorldForUkraine project and contribute to the victorious battle against the bloodshed inflicted on Ukraine by the aggression of the Russian Federation”, says the „about the project” section of the platform.

Go to the streets — Tell people — Connect and Unite — Become POWERFUL

Volunteers have launched #WorldForUkraine as a platform that shows the magnitude of the world’s actions against Russian aggression. In digital world – it is an INTERACTIVE MAP of public support of Ukrainians worldforukraine.net under the hashtag #WorldForUkraine – rallies, flash mobs, protests around the world. In the physical dimension – it is your opportunity to take to the streets and declare: “No to Putin’s aggression, no to war.” There you may find information about past and future rallies in your city in support of Ukraine. This is a permanent platform for Ukrainian diaspora and people all over the world concerned about the situation in Ukraine.

So here’s a couple of things you could do yourself to help:

* if there is a political rally in your city, then participate in it and write about it on social media with geolocation and the hashtag #WorldForUkraine

* if there are no rallies nearby, organize one in support of Ukraine yourself, write about it on social media with geolocation adding the hashtag #WorldForUkraine

The map will add information about gathering by #WorldForUkraine AUTOMATICALLY

Your voice now stronger THAN ever

All rallies are already here: https://worldforukraine.net

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How is Moldova managing the big influx of Ukrainian refugees? The authorities’ plan, explained 

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From 24th to 28th of February, 71 359 Ukrainian citizens entered the territory of Republic of Moldova. 33 173 of them left the country. As of this moment, there are 38 186 Ukrainian citizens in Moldova, who have arrived over the past 100 hours. 

The Moldovan people and authorities have organized themselves quickly from the first day of war between Russia and Ukraine. However, in the event of a prolonged armed conflict and a continuous influx of Ukrainian refugees, the efforts and donations need to be efficiently managed. Thus, we inquired about Moldova’s long-term plan and the state’s capacity to receive, host, and treat a bigger number of refugees. 

On February 26th, the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Moldova approved the Regulation of organization and functioning of the temporary Placement Center for refugees and the staffing and expenditure rules. According to the Regulation, the Centers will have the capacity of temporary hosting and feeding at least 20 persons, for a maximum of 3 months, with the possibility of extending this period. The Centers will also offer legal, social, psychological, and primary medical consultations to the refugees. The Center’s activity will be financed from budget allocations, under Article 19 of Provision no. 1 of the Exceptional Situations Commission from February 24th, 2022, and from other sources of funding that do not contravene applicable law.

The Ministry of Inner Affairs and the Government of Moldova facilitated the organization of the volunteers’ group “Moldova for Peace”.  Its purpose is to receive, offer assistance and accommodation to the Ukrainian refugees. The group is still working on creating a structure, registering and contacting volunteers, etc. It does not activate under a legal umbrella. 

Lilia Nenescu, one of the “Moldova for Peace” volunteers, said that the group consists of over 20 people. Other 1700 registered to volunteer by filling in this form, which is still available. The group consists of several departments: 

The volunteers’ department. Its members act as fixers: they’re responsible for connecting the people in need of assistance with the appropriate department. Some of the volunteers are located in the customs points. “The Ministry of Inner Affairs sends us every day the list of the customs points where our assistance is needed, and we mobilize the volunteers”, says Lilia Nenescu. 

The Goods Department manages all the goods donated by the Moldavian citizens. The donations are separated into categories: non-perishable foods and non-food supplies. The volunteers of this department sort the goods into packages to be distributed. 

The Government intends to collect all the donations in four locations. The National Agency for Food Safety and the National Agency for Public Health will ensure mechanisms to confirm that all the deposited goods comply with safety and quality regulations. 

The Service Department operates in 4 directions and needs the volunteer involvement of specialists in psychology, legal assistance (the majority of the refugees only have Ukrainian ID and birth certificates of their children); medical assistance; translation (a part of the refugees are not Ukrainian citizens). 

According to Elena Mudrîi, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Health, so far there is no data about the number of  Covid-19 positive refugees. She only mentioned two cases that needed outpatient medical assistance: a pregnant woman and the mother of a 4-day-old child. 

The Accommodation Department. The volunteers are waiting for the centralized and updated information from the Ministry of Labor about the institutions offering accommodation, besides the houses offered by individuals. 

The Transport Department consists of drivers organized in groups. They receive notifications about the number of people who need transportation from the customs points to the asylum centers for refugees.

The municipal authorities of Chișinău announced that the Ukrainian children refugees from the capital city will be enrolled in educational institutions. The authorities also intend to create Day-Care Centers for children, where they will be engaged in educational activities and will receive psychological assistance. Besides, the refugees from the municipal temporary accommodation centers receive individual and group counseling. 

In addition to this effort, a group of volunteers consisting of Ana Gurău, Ana Popapa, and Andrei Lutenco developed, with the help of Cristian Coșneanu, the UArefugees platform, synchronized with the responses from this form. On the first day, 943 people offered their help using the form, and 110 people asked for help. According to Anna Gurău, the volunteers communicate with the Government in order to update the platform with the missing data. 

Translation from Romanian by Natalia Graur

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