“With each day you delay your vaccination, you prolong the reign of Covid and extend the epidemic. Only collective immunity can help us stop the pandemic”, said Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government Marija Obradović in Aranđelovac today.
She commended the leaders of the municipality of Aranđelovac and the employees at its municipal administration who took the vaccine and thus sent a message to their fellow citizens, noting that, with 38.54 of fully vaccinated adults, Aranđelovac was around the middle of the ranking list in terms of immunisation. She voiced her concern over the low percentage of vaccinated young persons aged 18 to 30 and called on all citizens, in particular the young, to heed the advice and ensure as many of them as possible take the vaccine against Covid-19.
“As of today, 2,664,000 persons, or approximately 50 of the population of Serbia, have been fully vaccinated, which is insufficient. The sooner we all take the vaccine, the sooner we will see the end of the epidemic. Serbia has been and should remain a leader in terms of vaccination and the Government has prepared a serious campaign to achieve this and to combat Covid-19. Local self-governments, together with the national administration, will step up their efforts to persuade citizens to take the vaccine. The fact that 66.5 percent of persons aged over 65 in Serbia have been vaccinated shows this is possible and offers proof of our concern for our elderly citizens”, Ms. Obradović said.
Minister Obradović, accompanied by the president of the municipality Mr. Bojan Radović, visited also the building of the Municipality of Aranđelovac and the area designated to serve as the one-stop shop and learned about the concept design for the spatial adaptation, interior design, branding and functional software upgrade of the one-stop shop, for which Aranđelovac had received 5.1 million dinars in a competition organised by the MPALSG, together with more than 2.2 million dinars earmarked for digitalisation of public services and implementation of e-Government in the municipality.
During the visit, Minister Obradović said the MPALSG had allocated more than seven million dinars to the municipality of Aranđelovac this year to support its further development and modernisation of the services it provided to its citizens.
“The citizens of Aranđelovac should be proud of their local self-government, as it is among the few that have succeeded in securing funding for the establishment of a one-stop shop, in order to provide citizens and businesses with a swift, efficient and high-quality service, a service tailored to us all, as customer satisfaction is the only metric of the quality of work of local self-government units, and indeed of the entire state”, Ms. Obradović said in conclusion.
She took the opportunity to once again commend the municipality of Aranđelovac for completing the process of updating the Address Register and helping reduce the number of unnamed streets and hamlets in Serbia from 67,000 down to 19,000 in just several months.
Minister Obradović began her visit to Aranđelovac by attending the final conference “Empowering Rural Women in the Municipality of Aranđelovac in a Social and Entrepreneurial Context”, where she said being a woman in Serbia was not easy, but noted the state had demonstrated it was capable of providing political support to the empowerment of women across all levels.
“We are entering an age of women and, as many times before, this coronavirus epidemic has shown that the survival and stability of a society depends on strong, self-aware women, capable of weathering a crisis period and keeping their family together. The Government of Serbia has done much to improve the situation of women, but there is always room for improvement, especially at the local level. Economic empowerment of women and support to female entrepreneurship are crucial steps towards gender equality”, Obradović said.
Today’s conference of the Gender Equality Commission of the Municipal Assembly of Aranđelovac, at which awards were presented to four female entrepreneurs from villages around Aranđelovac, was held within the framework of the programme “Enhancing Good Governance and Social Inclusion for Municipal Development – Swiss PRO”, which is implemented by the UNOPS office in partnership with the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities.
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