Public discussion on the issue related to housing policies for Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities in Kosova


Public discussion on the issue related to housing policies for Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities in Kosova

In Pristina, on 29 May 2019 was organized a public discussion by the KOSINT 2020 project on housing policy issues related to Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities in Kosovo.

Members of the panel to discuss this matter were good acquaintances of the field that included:

-Znj. Keriman Sadikaj, Office of Good Governance within the Prime Minister's Office;

-Znj. Merita Dalipi, Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning;

-Znj. Violeta Thaqi, leader of the housig program VoRAE.

Other participants were members of civil society organizations working in the field of housing and municipal officials.

The panelists presented the situation on the field based on their experience and what difficulties the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities face in terms of housing, accompanying infrastructure and documentation. In addition, the legal situation and the various strategies that affect the housing issue were introduced.

Each of the points was discussed also by the other participants, and one of them each gave information from their experience.

At the end of the public disscusion, the participants came up with a common approach to the next steps and recommendations to be undertaken to advocate in this area.

- To work on the functionalization of an intergovernmental database, which exists already. In this database all the housing cases are required to be registered, all the cases where they have already built houses / flats in each municipality. This database will help in identifying different cases, reducing manipulations, not letting duplication of claims, and based on the criteria to be filled, it would help in identifying priority cases. The database would be completed by municipalities and ministries dealing with this issue

  • Another important issue that has been discussed was that it would be necesseary that each municipality appoints a housing officer, who would be bridge between the municipality, the government and the CSO, and would also complement the database if it would be functionalized.
  • Discuss with the Ministry of Finance to add a budget sub-code for social housing.
  • To have the municipalities draft a three-year residential plan.
  • To increase the cooperation between ministries, municipalities and CSOs that deal with housing in reporting the construction cases.
  • Property documentation remains one of the most problematic issues, as many cases do not have property documents, or the property is purchased without the transfer of owners, etc.

Housing is one of the most important issues, as if a family does not live well, it affects family welfare and health, education and employment. Therefore, there is a need for greater co-operation for housing to be provided for all the citizens of Kosovo