Serbia: Promoting Peace Building in Southern Serbia
JOINT PROGRAMME QUICK FACTS
Total Budget $2,500,000
Delivery Rate
Participating Agencies IOM, UNDP, UNICEF, UNHCR, UN-Habitat
Main Achievements
- JP has contributed directly to the inclusion of vulnerable groups in Serbia, ensuring that their rights are protected. 8 civil society organizations awarded grants to raise awareness of gender and minority rights issues. Youth and Migration report raised awareness on issues facing youth and migrants in south Serbia.
- JP contributed to improved participation by local police, which has helped boost community cohesion. 42 training sessions held in 11 municipalities for Safety Council members, municipal staff and police officers.
- Communities are more able to mediate conflicts. 163 internally displaced people have moved from collective centers into private homes. 302 IDPs have received a range of grant assistance to aid in resettlement.
Contact Nicholas Hercules, Programme Manager
nicholas.hercules@undp.org
nicholas.hercules@undp.org
South Serbia has the country’s only concentration of ethnic Albanians, and is also the poorest part of the country. Problems continue to exist over inequalities, actual and perceived, between ethnic communities in South Serbia (including Serb, Roma, and IDPs from Kosovo), and between the south and the rest of Serbia. Increased tensions in Kosovo threaten to spill over into South Serbia unless sources of resentment are addressed.
This programme will focus on the thirteen municipalities of South Serbia (with particular focus on the three with ethnic Albanian populations) with a multi-pronged approach to address many of the key obstacles to sustainable peace in this region, including to strengthen dialogue, partnership, and social cohesion, improve access and quality of public services, and to stimulate equitable economic development. It will focus on building sustainable capacities of local institutions for mitigating the causes of tension between the populations in the region.