Zganec was taking part in a meeting of the Commission which on February 10 and 11 pooled some 70 ministers and other senior officials from around the world, who discussed the implementation of the
Copenhagen Declaration and the Programme of Action, documents adopted at the 1995 summit on social development in Copenhagen.
The debate before the Commission for Social Development will be one of the drafts for a summit on the achievements of the UN Millennium Declaration, which will pool heads of state and government at the U.N. headquarters in New York in September this year.
Zganec said that the reform of the social care system in Croatia meant an increasingly important role of local self-government units and civil society and the transformation of the labour market, which together constituted the so-called combined social policy model.
The social policy in Croatia is primarily oriented towards creating conditions stimulating economic growth and development and an active policy of employment and management of human resources in line with European Union standards, Zganec said.
He said that 18.2 percent of Croatia's population was relatively poor, but that 40 percent of the population would be in danger of poverty without important social transfers and pensions. Croatia has a number of programmes for the protection of the socially most vulnerable groups, including children, families and disabled persons, Zganec said in his address.