OHR and UNHCR Encourage the BiH HoP to Adopt the Revised Strategy for the Implementation of Annex VII

OHR and UNHCR welcome the decision taken last week by the House of Representatives to adopt the revised Strategy for the Implementation of Annex VII of the Dayton Peace Agreement and appeal to members of the House of Peoples of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly to take a similar decision by also adopting the Strategy at their session tomorrow.

In their 14 June joint-letter to the BiH Parliamentary Assembly, members of the international community outlined the need for an agreement on the Strategy given that fifteen years after Dayton, the plight of people who are displaced is still all too evident, with some 113,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) remaining in need of durable solutions in the country. 

The Strategy is the overarching framework for achieving the required durable solutions for the remaining IDPs in BiH and it includes measures necessary to support sustainable return, as well as recognizing the need to provide local integration support for those IDPs who are unable to return, including adequate compensation instead of return.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, voiced his support for the Strategy’s adoption during his visit to BiH last August and the European Commission, in it’s Annual Progress Report, has stressed that the Strategy represents a significant effort towards finalizing the return process in the country. Furthermore, the PIC Steering Board has called for the Strategy’s adoption in its last four communiqués.

Given that the Strategy contains the measures necessary to finally provide durable solutions for the remaining displaced people and has received widespread support, OHR and UNHCR encourages the House of Peoples to adopt the Strategy at its session tomorrow and thereby signal its firm commitment to ending displacement and providing the assistance these people so desperately require and so rightly deserve.