Evaluating integration and participation policies for immigrants and minorities in an Amsterdam District: Oost Anja van Heelsum and Rinus Penninx 1. Introduction As was explained in the City Template of Amsterdam, the municipality of Amsterdam was sub-divided in 1990 into sixteen districts, each having an elected District Council. The administration of these districts is responsible for a limited spectrum of services and activities: institutions that serve a wider region, such as secondary schools, remained under the supervision of the city administration (Centrale Stad). One of the new districts was Oost. The district of Oost is situated just outside the inner city ring of Amsterdam. It was built between 1880 and 1900 as part of the great extension plan of Amsterdam adopted in 1877 (the Kalff-plan). Nowadays most of the area still consists of the original buildings, the majority of them social housing units now. Since 1970 a considerable part of the buildings has been renovated. Inhabitants of Oost are relatively poor; the general unemployment rate is high (about 21 percent in 1997). Of the 43.000 inhabitants of Oost 46,3 % are considered as belonging to the target groups of `ethnic minorities' or `integration' policies: they are born outside the Netherlands or do have at least one parent that is born outside the Netherlands. The largest immigrant groups in Oost are of: 1) Surinamese, 2) Moroccan, 3) Turkish and 4) South- European descent.1 None of these four largest groups dominate. There no clear physical concentration of groups in parts of the district. Politically Oost has been dominated by leftist parties from the beginning. In 1996 the District Administration of Oost published a policy document entitled "Het daget in den Oosten" (It dawns in the east). That document formulated objectives of immigrant and minorities' policies in a number of domains such as education, labour market, sports, elderly care. In 1998 the administration of the district requested the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMES) to evaluate its minorities' policies. The IMES made a proposal for this evaluation that was based on the analytical framework developed in the MPMC-project, and thus specifically focussed on political participation. That research was done in the period between July 1998 and February 1999 and the final report was published by Oost.2 In this section we will briefly summarise the results of that research project in general and specifically address three questions of the MPMC-programme: How did local authorities activate immigrants and ethnic minorities to participate in decision making on and implementation of local policies? Secondly: How did immigrants and ethnic minority groups mobilise and try to gain access to decision-making processes and what obstacles were encountered in the process? And lastly: To what outcomes leads the interaction between the two? 2. Policy objectives and research method The 1996 policy document "Het daget in den Oosten" had been initiated by the alderwoman of the Labour Party of Oost, who was in charge of Welfare and Education. The document itself was written by senior staff member of her department who acted as co-ordinator for