In a Belgrade suburb Ovča today was laid the foundation stone for the construction of 235 apartments intended for refugee families from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, residing on the territory of Belgrade, within the third sub-project of the Regional Housing Project of the Republic of Serbia (RHP).

The project is worth 9.8 million euros. Of that amount, 5.4 million euros for the construction of these apartments have been provided from the Regional Housing Program Donor Fund (the biggest donor is the European Union) while the rest was provided by the City of Belgrade. Construction of apartments started at Ovčanski put bb. Contractor is Zlatibor gradnja and the Institute of Transportation CIP is in charge of design and supervision. The third RHP sub-project is worth 13.6 million euros earmarked for a total of 734 housing solutions (flats, prefabricated houses, construction materials packages and village houses) for refugee families from the territory of Belgrade.

The ceremony of laying the foundation stone was attended by many prominent officials from Serbia and guests from the region, as well as ambassadors of donor countries. On behalf of the Serbian state first shovel concrete on the foundation stone threw the first Serbian Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and President of the Commission for Coordination of Permanent Refugee Integration of the Government of the Republic of Serbia Mr Ivica Dacic. He was joined by Mr Vladimir Cucić, Commissioner for Refugees and Migration of the Republic Serbia, Mr Andreja Mladenovic, Deputy Mayor of Belgrade, Ambassador Michael Davenport, Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia, Kyle Randolph Scatt, US Ambassador, Stepfan Selen, Deputy Director General for loans and social development of the Council of Europe Development Bank, Ms Francesca Bonelli, the UNHCR field activities coordinator, Mr Peter Burkhard, OSCE Ambassador to Serbia and Mr Goran Kvrgić, Director of Project Implementation Unit "Research and development" doo Beograd and others.

Regional Housing Programme (RSP) is a joint multi-annual program of the Republic of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and the Republic of Croatian, which aims to provide permanent housing solutions for some 27,000 most vulnerable refugee families, or about 74,000 people in the region. Of this number, 16,780 families are in Serbia, namely about 45,000 people.

Regional Housing Programme of the Republic of Serbia is being implemented with the support of the OSCE and UNHCR, and funded by the European Union, which is the largest donor, the United States, Germany, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Turkey, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Program is implemented by the Council of Europe Development Bank.