The past weekend marked the completion of rehabilitation of 1,000 private homes by the EU Floods Recovery Programme across the flood-affected areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
As of today, a total of 1,014 homes have been rehabilitated as part of the first phase of the Programme’s housing recovery component, which focused on assisting the most vulnerable flood victims to return home.
The beneficiaries of the first phase included families who resided in collective accommodation facilities, families living below the poverty line, senior citizens and persons with disabilities.
“These funds are part of the EU’s pledge made at the Donors’ Conference last year. The achievement of this important milestone brings the first phase of the Programme’s housing recovery component to an end. The first phase targeted those who needed our help the most and we are pleased to have assisted more than 3,500 people to move back to their homes. This has made a big difference for all these people, and it is great to begin the New Year with such good news,” said Andy McGuffie, Spokesperson of the EU Delegation to BiH and EU Special Representative Office.
Overall, the EU Floods Recovery Programme aims to rehabilitate up to 4,000 homes damaged in the floods and thus directly assist around 14,000 people to return home.
In addition to the 1,000 homes completed already, and additional 3,000 homes are currently being selected for rehabilitation from the applicants who responded to the two public calls in late 2014.
The selection and verification process has now been completed for nearly 1,000 units, while the selection of the remaining 2,000 beneficiaries is ongoing. Tendering procedure will be launched shortly for contractors to implement the rehabilitation works on the selected 1,000 units – focusing on the municipalities of e.g. Banja Luka, Bijeljina, Šamac, Doboj, Maglaj, Orašje, Odžak, Tuzla, and Domaljevac.
“The selection and verification process of applications is designed to ensure transparency and adherence to the selection criteria, as well as to avoid overlapping with other donors’ activities. We therefore closely cooperate with the relevant local authorities and will continue to do so until the end of the process,” said Edis Arifagić, the UNDP Programme Manager for the EU Floods Recovery Programme.
The value of the overall programme is 43.52 million, out of which 42.24 million is 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), the EU Delegation to BiH stated.
(Source: Fena)
