Digital Literacy Course for Older Persons – PRO Programme (Serbia)

In ageing eastern/central Serbian municipalities (e.g. roughly a third of Zaječar residents are over 65), the joint UN 'PRO – Local Governance for People and Nature' programme (EUR 10m, mainly Swiss-funded, running through 2026 across 99 towns/municipalities) has run a digital literacy course for older citizens since 2023, delivered by UNFPA with the Red Cross of Serbia and the Government of Serbia.

Build digital literacy among older citizens in six municipalities (Zaječar, Boljevac, Kragujevac, Kruševac, Niš, Velika Plana) covering email, the national e-Government portal, online banking and the e-Cadastre land registry, and create sustainable peer-support capacity.

Five mandatory practical-skills sessions per participant; 140 graduates became informal 'digital inclusion ambassadors' running peer-to-peer sessions; in October 2024 municipal authorities, local Red Cross branches and Centres for Social Work signed memoranda of understanding to continue the service after donor funding ends.

By late 2024, more than 600 older persons had completed the training. Publicly available outcome figures come only from UN-system sources; no independent government, academic or media evaluation of impact was found, and participant counts have varied across reports (500+ then 600+).