Documents

Agenda for Regional Action for Refugees and Displaced Persons

The democratic changes in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina have finally created the opportunity to honour the refugee and displaced persons’ right of return, entirely in line with the respective international agreements and after years of heavy efforts on this issue. Close cooperation between governments, donors and civil society in the region is now become a reality and the refugees and displaced persons can exercise their right to freely choose whether to voluntarily return to their places of origin or to remain and integrate where they currently reside.

With the "Agenda for Regional Action" (AREA), the Stability Pact through its Steering Committee on Refugee Matters (Regional Return Initiative / Working Table I) has achieved in only 6 months, in a consultative and participatory process engaging the three concerned governments and international organizations, to identify remaining obstacles, take stock of the needed action and quantify gaps in assistance, aiming to implement lasting solutions for all displaced and refugees from the Bosnia and Croatia Wars within the coming years. The ‘Agenda" is the roadmap for achieving this. Most refugees and displaced are expected to be settled or to be engaged in the process of re/integration within the next 2 years, allowing all people to fully participate in the recovery and development of the region.

The Agenda is based on the fact that still close to 1.25 million people remain displaced within the countries of the former Yugoslavia, 490,000 of them as refugees and 760,000 internally displaced. Over 60,000 of them are still living under unsustainable conditions in collective centres in the 3 countries; and have often done so for 8 years or more. The Agenda supports measures conducive to refugee return, which have already proven successful with increased returns in 2000 and 2001 in Bosnia-Hercegovina. But it is by now recognized that, - given the social, economic, demographic and political changes in the region - many, mostly young families have decided to stay and , at least temporarily, integrate at their current place of refuge.

Without implying a policy shift away from returns in favor of integration, this fact requires appropriate responses in national planning.

The Agenda for Regional Action addresses a broad range of items, ranging from housing and property legislation, citizenship and legal aid, social rights of refugees, pensions, exchange of information, to humanitarian assistance and demining. The Steering Committee on Refugee Matters stresses the importance to deal with these issues both on a regional, economic and political level. It is now vital to link refugee and internal displaced persons issues to social and economic recovery, in close cooperation with all concerned Working Tables of Stability Pact. Consequently national governments in the region have accepted to gradually overtake the full financial responsibility for resolving displacement matters, but need to be assisted with budgetary and technical support in the initial phase.

Key initiatives for refugees include reconstruction programs, the construction of social housing, development of individual housing loan schemes, integrated programs in FR Yugoslavia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia providing linkages to economic recovery and social development initiatives and enactment of property legislation.

The Stability Pact welcomes the by now well established process of consultations, bilateral contacts, including the basic principles ant the time-table for returns, between the 3 countries. The quick conclusion of necessary bilateral agreements between Croatia, Bosnia and Hecegovina and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia will mark an important step in the normalization of relations and for finding solutions for the displaced in the region.

The Stability Pact calls on the three countries to remove the last remaining obstacles to return and sustainable re/integration and on the donor countries to mobilize all necessary resources in time to allow the resolution of this bitter consequence of war.