Social Assistance In The Rural Area – Between Desideratum And Reality

Social assistance is the main mechanism by which the society intervenes in order to prevent, limit or remove the negative effect of certain events that could affect vulnerable persons or groups, without their will. Because 45% of the whole country’s population lives in the rural area, the rural poor people represent two-thirds of the total Romanian population. Family plays the most important role in their support. The persons in difficulty benefit from the services provided by the local authorities representatives, as well as from the services of non-governmental organizations in the social sector involved in the development of some projects and programs in the rural area – the Regional Operational Program (ROP), the Sectoral Operational Program –Human Resources Development (SOP-HRD), etc. At present, the social assistance services in the rural area are also affected by the socio- economic context and by the general poverty both of the local budgets, which continue to remain the finance source for the social aid, and of the State budget, which represents the main source of finance for the allowances and other social aids for the population; it is the development of the non- governmental sector that represents the only viable way by which we could cover the vacuum represented by the need for specialized social services at rural community level.