Regional Housing Programme in Serbia: helping vulnerable refugees to improve their housing conditions

The breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s caused massive population displacement. There are still 43,751 refugees and 223,139 Internally Displaced Persons residing in Serbia (UNHCR data) and some of them are particularly vulnerable.

One of the biggest problems for these people is a lack of adequate housing - the conditions they live in often do not meet basic needs and standards. The Regional Housing Program (RHP), a joint initiative of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia, aims at solving the housing problem and providing durable solutions to refugees and IDPs across the region.

In Serbia the implementation of the programme includes delivering building material to the most vulnerable refugee households. The RHP in Serbia is expected to provide durable housing solutions to refugees – a total of 16,780 households will receive help. The programme is financially supported by a number of international stakeholders, first and foremost by the European Union and the USA, while the UNHCR and the OSCE’s role is to monitor the process of the selection of beneficiaries, and the sustainability and protection aspects of the provided solutions.