Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) Governor Carlo Monticelli joined European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Chairwoman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Borjana Krišto, in a ceremony on 1 November in the municipality of Vogošća, near Sarajevo, to deliver keys to a new Regional Housing Programme (RHP) apartment building to 27 most vulnerable families.
The Federal Minister of Displaced Persons and Refugees, Nerin Dizdar, the Mayor of Vogošća, Migdad Hasanović and Ambassador of the European Union to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Johann Sattler, also attended, in addition to other representatives from the RHP donor countries. As the Programme is coming to an end in December after 11 years, the gathering also provided an occasion to celebrate the many achievements of this landmark initiative.
The RHP – a joint initiative of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia – was launched in 2012 to provide secure homes to the most-vulnerable refugees and internally-displaced persons in these four countries following the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. As such, the RHP was the first joint post-conflict initiative between these countries in the region.
