Integration

2017

Local integration efforts in Albania will focus on building networks with partners in the field, including local governance units and private sector, and ensuring small cash grants for up to eight families to support self-reliance.

UNHCR in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro shall concentrate its efforts on advocating for improvements at the legislative and administrative levels, so to include those granted with international protection into all related plans and strategies, and on ensuring that activities of partners are designed to overcome the existing employment and housing constraints.

Naturalization of refugees will be supported through free legal aid and coverage of related fees in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as through strengthening of the relevant government capacities in Kosovo (S/RES/1244(1999)).

The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia will work on the development of mechanisms for monitoring of access to services for integrated families originating outside the Western Balkans. The UNHCR shall participate in the process of adoption of a new Strategy for Integration of Refugees and Foreigners (2016-2020) to make sure that the people of concern outside the Western Balkans are not excluded.

Serbia will prioritise its assistance in line with its Solutions Steering Group (SSG) Initiative. Some IDPs will be provided with agricultural inputs, with entrepreneurship/business training and also with livelihoods sets or support to socially oriented small business associations. It is estimated that 78 per cent of beneficiaries will be self-employed afterwards. The educational component is implemented either through adult education centres, or within the apprentice’s workshop/local companies. The beneficiaries can either apply for business microloan in order to establish their own business or search for jobs in the private sector.

Assistance to all governments in the region will be provided in developing of integration strategies and programmes tailored for those refugees/asylum-seekers in their territory.