Ramiz Sejdaljaj: With God’s help I’m moving in soon. I have to work a bit on the balcony and to by some things for the house. Till now I have nothing

That was Ramiz Sejdijalj speaking in front of his newly rebuilt house in the village of Dobrushe located in the Istok Municipality. After spending four years in refugee camps in Monte Negro, this Egyptian man and his 6-member family returned to their former home and found it destroyed. But now, they are making final preparations to move in.

Hello and welcome to this edition of UNMIK on Air

In the nearby village of Banje, a similar story can be told. This Pregnant Roma woman, Azra Cukiqi, like Ramiz Sejdijalj, spent years in refugee camps in Monte Negro. Now, she’s back with her family and living in her rebuilt home in the village where she and her entire family were born.

Azra Cukiqi: We came back almost five months ago. Till now everything is OK.

Sejdaljaj’s and Cukiqi’s houses are among the approximately 90 houses, which were rebuilt in 2003, by the United Nations Rapid Response Return Facility or RRRF. The Office of Returns and Communities, also known as ORC and the United Nations Development Program, or UNDP, in close cooperation with United Nations Humanitarian Commission for Refugees or UNHCR, established the Rapid Response Return Facility in order to provide a speedy, flexible and coordinated response to individual or “spontaneous” returns. “We wanted to make returns fast”, says Peggy Hicks who is the Head (DIRECTOR?) of ORC:

Peggy Hicks: We needed something that we’ll be able to respond to returns more quickly and we also had a gap in terms of mechanism that were available to help people who wanted to return. Basically returns happen sometime in big groups but sometimes it’s just an individual or a family who wants to return. And what we saw happening was that there were individuals and families who have returned but they didn’t get the type of assistance they needed because the programs that existed before now provided some support but they could only help with housing support if it was a small amount. So what we needed was a program to fill that gap that could actually build a house for somebody if they came back as an individual.

UNDP set up the system of Rapid response return facility or RRRF. International organizations and NGO-s work with local municipalities to identify individuals who qualify for RRRF support. Once identified the ORC, UNDP and local municipalities work with the eligible returnees directly.

Although the RRRF stipulates that an individual is eligible for RRRF support if they are a member of a minority group, Sally Johnson the Facility Coordinator with UNDP, says RRRF has been supporting people from a range of ethnic backgrounds. These include Albanians, Ashkallis, Egyptians, Bosniaks, Goranis, Serbs, Turks and Croatians.

Sally Johnson: There are different levels of criteria; one level is the beneficiary profile that would mean that someone is of minority ethnic origin within a geographical location; we use here UNHCR definition of minorities in that context. A beneficiary would have had to return to Kosovo in 2002 and 2003, this was for lasts a year criterion, for this year we will probably have to revise. Also the potential beneficiary is highly vulnerable, this means that generally they have very limited income, they don’t have necessarily household assets, and this means that they don’t necessarily have a second property. Other criteria that we look at are category of house and damaged, now we provide full and partial housing reconstruction assistance that means if the house was completely destroyed or partially destroyed, that it is uninhabitable. A third category that is also category 3 according to international adopted standards here which is mainly repair but substantial repair let say 3.000 E

The Rapid Response Return Facility program also includes socio-economic assistance for its beneficiaries such as materials for small-scale agricultural projects or live stock. This socio-economic assistance was established last November, says Sally Johnson.

Sally Johnson: Our implementing partner “Mercy core” has been assessing our current beneficiaries of housing and assessing them in terms of what income generation support they might benefit from in order to propel them to the next level of sustainability and in order to allow them to stabilize their lives in their home communities. That seems to be progressing quite well and particularly considering the time of the year. We’ve already supported five of our current beneficiaries and we have a number of other project proposals that are in process at the moment and those five families, they’re actually in rural areas, they actually received for example a pregnant cow and enough feed for 3 months for the winter period or pregnant goats.

The ability of the Rapid Response Return Facility to support individual and small-scale return to a place of origin is contributing to the momentum of minority returns and integration in Kosovo. Again, Peggy Hicks of the ORC:

Peggy Hicks: Its importance is that we really do want to be able to say to anybody that returns, we have a framework emplaced, we have programs emplaced that can help you no matter what your circumstances are. So everybody knows about the big projects that are on one end of the spectrum and on the other end of the spectrum you have people who don’t need housing support, or they need some just small support with their houses. We wanted to be able to say no matter which place, which type of need you have, we have something that will help you.

Senior Advisor on Returns to the SRSG, Nenad Radosavljevic, thinks that the RRRF program is giving very promising signs:

Nenad Radosavljevic: That job has been realized from the fund of 2 484 000 euro. For the return of 90 families more then a million was spent. That shows one very positive fact, that the money exists in this fund and that it could be used quickly and efficiently for return of those individuals who decide to come back and for whom there is documentation about their residence before the conflict

The funds for the RRF come from several sources: To date, the Government of Norway contributed 1.5 million Euros, the US government contributed $500,000 and the Government of Ireland contributed 100.000 euros. UNDP has also earmarked $100,000. The projected RRRF budget for 2004 is 5 million euros. As the RRRF has a healthy budget, Peggy Hicks of the ORC encourages more people to take advantage of the fund:

Peggy Hicks: We need to make sure that we do outreach to displaced people so that they know about this fund. Because up until now cases have been refer to us but not as many as we expected. Specially people that are in Serbia and Monte Negro, I think they need to know about this fund so that they know that if they want to return to a house that is destroyed there is a way for them to help to get that house rebuild through RRRF. The other point that I’d emphasize for 2004 is that there will be fund provided for this RRRF from the Kosovo budget. So it is actually that Kosovo Government its self is going to help to support this. And I think it’s important that we recognize that that shows some of the commitment that Government has for supporting returns.

And this brings us to the end of today’s edition of UNMIK on AIR program.