Last week marked the beginning of rehabilitation works on 200 priority dwellings across the flood-affected areas in Bosnia Herzegovina financed by the EU Flood Recovery Programme, with works on additional 150 dwellings to follow next week. These works are due to be finalized within the next 45 days.
The rest of 300 priority dwellings will be selected in the coming weeks, which brings the total number of households receiving priority rehabilitation support to 650.
”This is the first phase of the housing rehabilitation, which focuses on families still residing in collective accommodation facilities as well as on those whom the relevant social welfare centres consider particularly vulnerable, with the aim to help them to make a swift return process due to the coming winter weather,” said Andy McGuffie, Spokesperson of the EU Delegation to BiH/EU Special Representative.
“While the housing programme will largely select its beneficiaries through a public call, the most vulnerable will be targeted for immediate rehabilitation, and this process relies heavily on the co-operation with the local authorities,“ explains Edis Arifagić, UNDP Programme Manager.
The public call for selection of further 1.200 beneficiaries has been issued, calling upon families from Bijeljina, Šamac, Doboj, Maglaj, Orašje, Odžak, Brčko District and Domaljevac to apply for rehabilitation assistance until 1 October, 2014.
Overall, the EU Floods Recovery Programme aims to rehabilitate a total of 4.000 housing units damaged in the floods throughout the Programme life cycle and thus directly assist around 14.000 people to return home.
The EU Flood Recovery Programme: The Programme was launched to restore normal living conditions in local communities and ensure that the aid reaches the most vulnerable ones in the aftermath of floods in May. Funds will be used to restore public services and infrastructure, reconstruct housing units for the most vulnerable ones, and for social and economic recovery of local communities. The value of the overall programme was 43.52 million, of which 42.24 million were provided by the European Union. The programme is implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
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