housing reconstruction in kosovo

Habitat International 26 (2002) 571–590

Housing reconstruction in Kosovo$

Corrado Minervini*,1

School of Technology, Architecture and Towns in Developing Countries, Polytechnic of Turin, Turin, Italy

Received 21 January 2002; received in revised form 1 April 2002; accepted 8 April 2002

Abstract

Housing reconstruction is one of the first steps towards environmental and economic recovery anddevelopment after a ‘complex emergency’.

This paper presents the main aspects and experience of the Housing Reconstruction Programme (HRP)in Kosovo since its beginning in 1999 until 2001. The special reference to the Peja/Pec (Peja is the Kosovarname of the most western municipality in Kosovo whose Serbian name is Pec. In the paper both names(Peja and Pec) appear because of the uncertain political status of the country at the time at which the paperwas written.) region helps to contextualise the case-study, giving concrete images of the HRP.

Kosovo has been a special case because the United Nations has managed the entire reconstructionprocess since soon after the NATO bombing. A great many economic and human resources have beendeployed, since the United Nations, the European Union and many international organisations have beenthoroughly involved. This has created high expectations both in terms of quality and quantity of results andduration required to stabilise the tremendous hotbed represented by the Balkans.

The previous deep involvement of the international community in Bosnia a few years before and in thesame area of the Balkans has also created mutatis mutandis a comparable antecedent. The literature on thesubject, in terms of manuals and articles, supports the analysis and criticism.

The reconstruction process analysed ranges from damage assessment to housing reconstructionmanagement and implementation, where implementation is not only intended as the physicalreconstruction of the country but also the institutional and capacity building that the UN, the mostimportant international organisation, has been creating in Kosovo.

In spite of the bulk investment, not all the strategies and actions implemented can be consideredsuccessful. Certainly, some could even be considered best practices and hence are replicable. Among these isthe Municipal Housing Committee (MHC), which has the lion’s share of the institutional bodies set up bythe UN temporary government to manage housing reconstruction.

$The opinions expressed by the author in this article are not necessarily those of the EU Department of

Reconstruction in the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo.

*Corresponding author. Tel.: +33-4-97071058; fax: +39-011-5646442.

E-mail address: [email protected] (C. Minervini).1 The author was Regional Housing Co-ordinator in the fourth European Union Pillar of the UNMIK in Kosovo.

0197-3975/02/$ - see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

PII: S 0 1 9 7 - 3 9 7 5 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 2 6 - 7

Apparently the MHC has dealt with only the selection of beneficiaries. In fact the MHC has created anadequate peaceful and democratic environment in which housing reconstruction has taken place, as well asthe allocation of housing assistance to minority families. Within the HRP the role of the NGOs has beencrucial as always, but limited to a much more sectoral-specific involvement, contrary to the Bosniaexperience. This has impeded the adoption of appropriate building technologies, a real participatory andintegrated approach, and post emergency local development where housing and people (ethnics included)were pivotal. However today in Kosovo, the games have already been played, the decisions have been takenand development is somehow in progress. r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Housing reconstruction management; Municipal housing; United Nations interim administration in

Kosovo; Kosovo

1. Introduction

From the political geography point of view, Kosovo belongs to the Federal Republic ofYugoslavia whose capital city is Belgrade. After the 78-day NATO air campaign against therepressive Serbian regime, Kosovo became the UN’s first international experience of territorialgovernment.

Under Security Council Resolution 1244, the UN established an international securitypresence—the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR), and an interim civil administration—the UNInterim Administrative Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Endowed by the Security Council withbroad authority to administer Kosovo, UNMIK fills the political and administrative vacuum leftafter the NATO air strike campaign.

Therefore, at the moment (2002), Kosovo is a hybrid from the legal viewpoint. It is a statewhich has never existed, but which probably will. It is a country whose status has beentemporarily suspended until an unknown date. Its temporary government is, for the first time inhistory, in the hands of the United Nations. UNMIK is a huge institutional organisation createdto eliminate ethnic hatred, and to attempt reconciliation, reconstruction and political planning.UNMIK provides an interim civil administration while establishing and overseeing thedevelopment of provisional democratic self-governing institutions that can assume administrativeresponsibilities, pending a political settlement. In other words, UNMIK’s responsibilities includeperformance of basic civil administrative functions, support of humanitarian and reconstructionefforts, assuring the safe return of refugees and displaced persons, maintenance of law and order,organising and overseeing the development of provisional self-governing institutions, transferringauthority to those institutions, facilitating a political process to determine Kosovo’s future status,and overseeing the transfer of authority from the provisional institutions to those establishedunder a political settlement.

The temporary government has been illuminated by the international experience of the UnitedNations Agencies, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and theEuropean Union (EU). They make up UNMIK’s four pillars of humanitarian assistance2 underthe UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), civil administration under the United Nations

2 Since 2001, the First Pillar has been called ‘‘Police and Justice Affairs’’.

C. Minervini / Habitat International 26 (2002) 571–590572

itself, democratisation and institution building under the OSCE, and economic reconstruction anddevelopment under the European Union.3

Since the beginning in summer 1999, UNMIK has set up regulations and suggestions aiming toprovide Kosovo with the minimum basic democratic environment ideally necessary for thetransition.

The administrative hubs of the UNMIK government were the thirty municipalities that madeup Kosovo: a region of almost 11,000 km2, populated by less than two million inhabitants.

The municipalities were established on the basis of UN Regulation 2000/45. It ‘‘establishes

provisional institutions for democratic and autonomous self-government at the municipal level as astep in the progressive transfer of administrative responsibilities from United Nations Interim

Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), which will oversee and support the consolidation ofthese institutions.’’ On October 28, 2000, in a major step towards the development of provisionalinstitutions, UNMIK organised the first free and fair elections in Kosovo, in which 79% ofregistered voters, including some minorities, turned out to elect representatives to 30 MunicipalAssemblies.

The 30 municipalities (run by an UNMIK international Municipal Administrator) and theirelected assemblies enjoy a fully decentralised administration, which was intended for the purposeof assisting the management of such municipal issues as utilities, education, health care,reconstruction and development. The Municipal Administrators—of different ethnic origins—have had to accomplish a difficult task—that of managing to make the simplest rules ofadministration common sense and achieving compliance with rules of civilised and honest co-operation among locals and internationals.

After NATO, Kosovo was devastated. It was a typical complex emergency situationcharacterised by the deliberate destruction of political, economic, social and environmentalsystems, rendering complex emergencies fundamentally more devastating than other disasters(Knight, 1998). Prior to that, Kosovo had suffered from overwhelming poverty, the disintegrationof the middle class, a breakdown in the rule of law, a failure to protect minority rights, and theloss of property rights, both individually and collectively.

Since the NATO bombing UNMIK has had to face a catastrophic situation comprisingrefugees and destruction, which was as widespread as 50% or even 70% of the inhabited areas.Most of the refugees returned to their place of origin immediately, aware that they would receivehumanitarian assistance later on. The intervention of the multinational army task force wascrucial and widespread. Since the day of so-called ‘‘liberation’’ from the Serbian military andparamilitary troops, the International Kosovo Force (KFOR) has been strong in ensuring safety,first in the civilian emergency and then also as regards future development. The maininfrastructures have been restored, among them chiefly roadways and health care.

The European Union has also played an important and multifaceted role in both the emergencyand in the reconstruction of Kosovo. Apart from providing bilateral co-operation, it has beenpresent in Kosovo through three main institutions. The European Agency of Reconstruction(EAR) almost completely subsidised physical rehabilitation. The International ManagementGroup (IMG) immediately intervened to assess the war damage and to provide highly qualifiedtechnical assistance to the reconstruction efforts. After the initial focus on basic reconstruction,

3 HCIC (the Humanitarian Community Information Centre) Kosovo Encyclopaedia, June 2000.

C. Minervini / Habitat International 26 (2002) 571–590 573

the fourth pillar of the provisional Kosovar government immediately shifted towards economicdevelopment and growth.

2. Damage assessment and emergency reconstruction

In summer 1999, UNHCR and IMG led the damage survey on the basis of the fundamentaldisagreement. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and theInternational Management Group (IMG),4 which relates to the accountability of Europeansteering committee members, made a thorough survey of private and public property assetsthroughout Kosovo. Both agencies were experienced. The latter was founded to face thereconstruction activity in Bosnia in 1993. Since then, IMG has performed at maximum efficiencybecause of the high professional profile of its managers, engineers and architects. In Bosnia, IMGwas the reference point for reconstruction activity. IMG made the damage assessment and fixedthe reconstruction standards, monitored the implementing partners on behalf of the major donor,the European Union, and in co-ordination with the local administrations.

As a surveyor, the UNHCR had had a totally different experience in Africa and in South andCentral America, following ethnic and civil conflicts and natural disasters. The UNHCR’s widersurveying experience to a certain extent compensates for the highly efficient and moregeographically specific experience of IMG.

Surprisingly, as a matter of fact the two well-known and legitimised institutions presented twodifferent surveys. Though they both based their damage assessment on some basic satellite dataon the one hand, and on a direct visual estimation of damages on the other, the overall resultsattained in terms of total damaged and destroyed houses differed, as did their standardevaluations of damage. While IMG adopted four categories of damage, UNHCR divided thedegree of damage into five levels. Experts and Municipal Technical Officers resolved to simplifythese parameters into two categories: damaged and destroyed houses. The former were those onesincluded in IMG categories 2 and 3 and UNHCR categories 2, 3 and 4, while the latter wereincluded in IMG category 4 and UNHCR category 5.

While the damage categorisation was more or less solved, the difference in figures made people(from beneficiaries to municipal officers) confused and rather sceptical about the effectiveness ofthe two ‘‘reliable agencies’’ (Table 1).

This created an atmosphere of mistrust between the assisted municipalities and theinternational UNMIK officers. Some municipality officers (internationals included) reacted andrefused to accept any kind of ‘official’ damage assessment made by anyone else but themselves.Further assessments were made at the municipal level and new figures appeared, which were, ofcourse, completely different from those of IMG and UNHCR. Moreover, some municipalitiesconsequently also refused the housing reconstruction needs evaluation and the relative allocation,

4 Following the collapse of Yugoslavia and during the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the International

Management Group (IMG) was established in 1993 as a specialised intergovernmental agency in accordance with UN

resolution 179, dated November 21, 1947. IMG addressed a variety of needs that could not be covered by other existing

profit and non-profit organisations or institutions. The IMG management and operational structure is sectionalised and

covers sectors such as housing, urbanism, transport, water management, solid waste management, energy,

telecommunications, agriculture and Geographical Information Systems.


as it was based on the ‘‘official’’ damage assessment. This was the first clash between the newlyestablished Kosovar municipalities and the Department of Reconstruction: a basic conflictbetween the UN and EU departments, as the former managed the municipalities administrativelywhile the latter managed reconstruction.

Though damage assessment is a mere technical procedure, its mismanagement has triggered achain reaction. It is widely known that for each building, damage assessment identifies a degree ofdamage on the basis of a preliminarily set-up scale. It is essential that its formats be standard so asto facilitate the process of analysis and collation among similar cases. Likewise, there should be acommon understanding of the terminology used (ADPC 2000).5 Imprecise terminology, or differentinterpretations of it, can cause confusion6 by misleading the estimated total cost of the rehabilitationprogramme, and worse still the single allocation of war damaged houses to be repaired or rebuilt permunicipality. Such a negative impact on the Kosovo Housing Reconstruction Programme was dueto two-sided terminology and interpretations that made it unclear.

In fact, the positions of the damage assessment schools of thought are not so conflicting as toprevent any likely agreement between IMG and the UN Agency. In any case they have had to

Table 1

Damage assessment in Peja/Pec region

Peja/Pec regiona IMG UNHCR Municipal assessment Average

Municipalities Dam Destr Tot Dam Destr Tot Dam Destr Tot Dam Destr Tot

1 Decan 1882 3525 5407 2657 1803 4460 1882 3525 5407 2140 2951 5091

2 Giakova 1700 2087 3787 2074 1545 3619 3025 2475 5500 2266 2036 4302

3 Istog 1796 2592 4388 2222 1649 3871 2223 2066 4289 2080 2102 4183

4 Klina 3362 3579 6941 2408 1235 3643 2256 1580 3836 2675 2131 4807

5 Peje 4499 6618 11117 4852 3295 8147 4981 4015 8996 4777 4643 9420

Total 13239 18401 31640 14213 9527 23740 14367 13661 28028 13940 13863 27803

a Damage assessment is also available at the Humanitarian Community Information Center (HCIC) in Pristine.

The reported figures on the damage assessment were supplied by the Directors of the Reconstruction Department of

Peja/Pec region municipalities. The different reference categories established by IGM and UNHCR were superseded by

two categories only: damaged houses (UNHCR cat. 2–4, and IMG cat. 2 and 3) and destroyed houses (UNHCR cat. 5

and IMG cat. 4).

5 Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre, Post-Disaster Damage Assessment and Need Analyses , Report 13 October,

2000- Second Draft. ADPC Workshop on Post-Disaster Assessment and Needs Analysis, Bangkok 24–28 April 2000.

Documents produced by participants of the Workshop, and also drawn from a variety of other publications including

the US Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance Field Operations Guide, the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Co-

ordination Field Handbook, the SPHERE Project, and the South Pacific Disaster Reduction Program’s Guide to

Successful Damage Reporting.6 Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre, Post-Disaster Damage Assessment and Need Analyses , Report 13 October,

2000- Second Draft. ADPC Workshop on Post-Disaster Assessment and Needs Analysis, Bangkok 24–28 April 2000.

Documents produced by participants of the Workshop, and also drawn from a variety of other publications including

the US Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance Field Operations Guide, the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Co-

ordination Field Handbook, the SPHERE Project, and the South Pacific Disaster Reduction Program’s Guide to

Successful Damage Reporting, p. 6.


complete different parallel procedures. Whether this was due to a misunderstanding or to a lack ofagreement is not known. What is extremely difficult to believe, however, is that UNMIK adoptedand issued both methods and figures. This was to be interpreted as the first step towards a badhousing reconstruction practice.

Despite this, in early autumn 1999, UNHCR, KFOR, the major international organisationsand NGOs succeeded in organising a buffer reconstruction programme to cope with the firstwinter under the UNMIK government.

A priority for the UNHCR humanitarian pillar in the first 6 months of UNMIK was to help thepeople of Kosovo through a particularly harsh winter. UNHCR, together with the EuropeanCommunity Humanitarian Office (ECHO), the US Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance andother partners, distributed shelter kits, and tools and materials to ensure that the residents ofaround 100,000 damaged or destroyed homes would have a roof over their heads. Emergencyrepair kits with which to insulate at least one room were provided to around 60,000 families. Morethan 12,000 expanded roofing kits of beams and heavy roofing plastic were distributed, with eachkit providing shelter for up to 18 persons.7

The current reconstruction began in 2000 with 80 international NGOs present locally and adraft of the Reconstruction Guidelines issued in March. The Reconstruction Guidelines were setup by the Housing Directorate of the Department of Reconstruction (UNMIK EU pillar)8,addressed to municipalities and directed towards providing common rules for:

* identification of beneficiaries;* rehabilitation and reconstruction for damaged and destroyed houses;* implementation procedures; and* general co-ordination of activities and actors.

Between 1999 and 2000, more than one third of war-damaged houses were rehabilitated orrebuilt, mostly thanks to the substantial funds from the EAR. In 2001, the investment wasconsiderably reduced (to 1/3 of the previous year’s) and the same percentage reduction from theprevious year was adopted for 2002. Up until the 2001 reconstruction campaign, more than halfof the houses destroyed or damaged by the war had been repaired or reconstructed by theHousing Reconstruction Programme (HRP).

3. Housing reconstruction management

The housing sector is generally considered to be a catalyst for starting broad post-warintervention leading to sustainable development, particularly if the local population is involved(Hasic & Roberts, 1999). On the other hand, while the need to respond quickly to an emergencysituation focuses attention on physical refugee settlement, resettlement or reconstruction, the

7 HCIC (the Humanitarian Community Information Centre) Kosovo Encyclopaedia, June 2000.8 The Department of Reconstruction is one of the Departments under the responsibility of the IV EU (Economic

Reconstruction and Development) Pillar. The others are: Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Public Utility

Department (PUD) and the Central Fiscal Authority (CFA).


wider objective of maximising linkages with the local community and local economy is oftenneglected (Armstrong, 1991).

Investment in the social capital of disaster-affected communities is the key to buildingsustainable recovery. Until now post-disaster reconstruction has focused too much on rebuildingprogrammes only, and though deprived of the social component even technical solutions do nottake adequate account of the needs of the community. This may mean that reconstruction will notlead to recovery (Nilssen, 2001).

The Housing Reconstruction vs Appropriate and Sustainable Development dichotomy,through grassroots community involvement, seems to find a solution in the fourth basicprinciple—out of twelve—guiding reconstruction planning in a post-war environment (Davis,1986). It states and advises ‘‘Always assess and, if necessary, rebuild the building industry beforerebuilding towns and cities’’. Applied research on suitable local building materials and thedevelopment of the building materials industry was not addressed in the reconstruction plans inpost-war Nigeria (Awotona, 1992) and was not even conceived in Kosovo. Physicalreconstruction began in the spring of 2000. The overwhelming majority of the building materialsand components were imported from the neighbouring countries of Macedonia, Greece, Italy,the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Germany. At thesame time a basic survey of the building materials industry in the region was carried out only forthe purpose of ‘‘commercialising’’ the largest building materials manufacturing companies on theinternational market. The small manufacturers in the construction sector begging help for anadequate and opportune reengineering of their production plants were totally ignored, as was thelocal market. The local building materials, of course, were expensive.

The approach was definitive, liberal and probably justified by the need to avoid the negativeimpact of the self-reliant and self-sufficient economy impeding urban growth and development(Danermark, 1993), and above all the interference of the local mafia and the nearby Albanianmafia. In both cases the phantom of nearby Albania was particularly felt. The first impression wasindeed that in Kosovo the general policy principles and macro-economic objectives inevitably ledto avoidance of any kind of bad influence from Albania. On the contrary—some observed—thegeneral international policy plan was to create a strategic industrial and economic growth pole inKosovo (where the majority have Albanian culture and speak Albanian), diverting the Albanianexodus towards Kosovo instead of Europe. This may justify and explain the great commitment ofthe international community (mainly the European Union) to accelerate economic developmentbased on a wider international commercialisation of economic assets and resources, neglecting thesmall scraps such as the local building construction economy, for instance.

The adopted approach was fully confirmed by:

(a) the enormous stock of building materials purchased outside Kosovo by THW (TechnischesHilfswerk—German Government Disaster Relief Organisation) immediately after the war toaddress the Housing Reconstruction Programme;

(b) the breaks in the reconstruction activity during the clashes between the Macedonian Army andthe UCK (Ushtria -Clirimtare e Kosov.es—Kosovo Liberation Army) in late spring and summer2001, as the majority of the building materials convoys crossed the Macedonian border; and

(c) the exclusive use of modern building construction technology based on reinforced concrete, torebuild houses destroyed by the war wherever they were i.e. in urban or rural areas.


This approach conflicts with the tentative promotion of informal economic activities, with anemphasis on small-scale and family businesses, encouraged by the existing literature (Keating,1994; Hasic & Roberts, 1999).

Moreover, the adopted building technology did not allow users to build their homes with self-help as most Kosovars had in the past. In fact, mainly in the rural areas the locals used to build uptheir homes using traditional building technology, which is adobe reinforced with recurrenthorizontal wooden boards. Hence, the approach also conflicts with the conviction that the HRPshould not attempt to rectify chronic needs,9 as the mud brick houses were replaced withreinforced concrete constructions.

Before the war, charming and proportionate examples of vernacular architecture in adobe werespread all over the country, and in terms of ancient beauty they competed with the morerenowned kulas or 19th century solid stone buildings. Nowadays, the architectural environment(rural and urban) has been definitively changed in favour of disproportionate reinforced concreteskeletons, which are liberally interpreted by house owners as such technology allows. Banned bythe civil building constructions, the adobe houses were considered overall ‘‘not appropriate’’ andnot applicable to the HRP for Kosovo. We wonder whether scientific research and experimentalstudies on improved and hybrid technologies related to mud brick houses were foreign todecision-makers, or the objectives to pursue in Kosovo were totally different.

After the NATO bombing and the so-called ‘‘liberation’’, only building construction companiesspecialised in casting reinforced concrete could manage most of the housing reconstruction. Theusers seldom ‘‘participated’’ in the housing reconstruction. Their participation consisted infinishing the house details (partial participation), and/or hiring a building contractor for theclearance of rubble, the laying of the foundations and so on. The latter should not be calledparticipation, but rather deferment.

In this respect, the approach to reconstruction was neither participative nor cost saving, thoughgenerally users, in both project conception and implementation, contribute significantly to costsavings, resource mobilisation and the efficient use of resources (Schubeler, 1996). Only some rareNGOs working with their own funds, independently implemented real participatory projects, thushelping people to help themselves. The rest of the Kosovar community involved in the HousingReconstruction Programme did not even feel the involvement, as the human resources mobilisedwere external instead of local, and the approach was capital intensive rather than humanintensive. In a post conflict area, communities are potentially more receptive to initiatives thatintroduced sustainable development practices, particularly if they were directly involved. This wasnoted and stressed just a few years earlier, in an analysis of the Bosnia and Herzegovina case-study (Hasic & Roberts, 1999).

The Kosovar community would have been even more receptive due to past experience when thewhole Kosovar community spontaneously established a parallel underground system at theeducational and economic levels. This system allowed them to survive the oppression of the SerbGovernment and Army for 10 years, and was possible because Kosovar society was alreadystrongly organised with clannish structures.

9 Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre, Post-Disaster Damage Assessment and Need Analyses , Report 13 October,

2000- Second Draft, p. 5.


This strong and invincible sense of community was not exploited at all in the housingreconstruction process. The reason for this is two-fold:

* firstly because the construction technology system adopted in Kosovo housing reconstructionneeded only skilled labour (supplied from outside the community, as well as the buildingmaterials and related technology coming from abroad) and

* secondly because only a few houses per village were selected to be repaired or rebuilt, thuscreating a strong sense of envy among the unassisted remainder of the target villagecommunity.

One more reason may be that the clannish Kosovar society was considered by donors tobe a barrier to the transparent and democratic allocation of houses to be repaired orreconstructed. This may be true. As a matter of fact, housing assistance was not available for all,but rather for those families matching some specific criteria (see beneficiary selection) which inmost cases conflicted with the chieftain’s view and opinion. However, even a target clannishsociety could have suggested a way to make participation active. The donors sought neither likelyco-operation with the grassroots society nor a meeting point with the existing clannish socialstructure.

The seventh principle proposed by I. Davis states ‘‘At every possible point, involve the localpopulation that has survived the war in the planning process and rebuilding activity’’ (Davis, 1986).Although the research and related literature, conferences, congresses, meetings and seminars, andthousands of papers have always extensively encouraged the participatory approach, andalthough since the 1970s the paradigm of community development has promoted people’sinvolvement in projects—meaning that local people have an important role to play in decision-making, planning, implementing of plans, and taking an active role in ‘evaluation’ (Cohen &Uphoff, 1980), Davis’ seventh principle was not even considered, in spite of all this.

As a result of housing reconstruction intervention in Kosovo, the original sense of communitywas endangered as disparities in living standards were created between those families benefitingfrom housing assistance and those continuing to live in adobe houses though they were notdamaged during the war.

It seemed that macro-economic decisions were affecting both the developments of the localbuilding construction industry and participatory post-war building reconstruction, with two sideeffects:

(a) a definitive modification of the architectural panorama in favour of reinforced concretetechnology, without sustainable and appropriate building construction alternatives and

(b) the creation of a modern society whose sustainability was sought in external aid andsubstantial external capital investment.

4. The municipal housing committee

On the institutional side, reconstruction management is less problematical than damageassessment and political and macro-economic options for physical reconstruction.


The crucial role of an institutional structure which clearly defines responsibilities for each of theelements in the reconstruction programme has been considered of paramount importance since1986 (Davis, 1986),10 and was confirmed ten years later by the World Bank (World Bank, 1996).

In Kosovo, the establishment and development of an institutional body directly related tohousing reconstruction was conceived at the very beginning of the reconstruction activity in 1999.Its name was Municipal Housing Committee (MHC) and it was planned to be within theMunicipalities, but under the guidance of the Housing Directorate.

The Housing Directorate is one of the several directorates making up the Department ofReconstruction11 (in turn within the fourth EU pillar of UNMIK). ‘‘It is responsible for thenormalisation of the housing situation in Kosovo so that the most vulnerable population –particularly

minorities–is adequately housed.’’12

The Housing Directorate also established strict building guidelines for housing reconstruction,that all donors have agreed to follow in order to ensure equity in the reconstruction effort and tomaximise the value of the reconstruction. In addition, procedures were established through whichfamilies could register with their municipal council.

At the operative municipal level, therefore, it is mainly the MHC that manages theHousing Reconstruction Programme. It works as an institutional body at the KosovarMunicipal Administrations level in order to establish a sound environment within whichthe HRP can be promoted and implemented. This secure environment was initially intendedto be democratic and transparent according to the reference guide to the Housing Reconstruction(HR) Guidelines, that clearly define the procedures to be followed to identify beneficiariesor allocate houses (to be repaired or rebuilt) to the most vulnerable families13 in themunicipalities.

Hence, in theory the MHC was independent from the political influence of the local parties. Itseemed to be just a reference technical body devoted only to reconstruction purposes, in otherwords, a simple and objective mechanism with which to allocate housing assistance to the mostneedy families.

In practice, the real and hidden objective of the MHC might be sought in institutional andcapacity building actions, providing the Municipal Officers with adequate moral authority andtechnical competence to run the very delicate issue of housing assistance in a reconstructionprogramme independently.

Housing assistance is in fact addressed only to those families in need, whose houses wereaffected by the war. Therefore, beneficiaries were meant to be a limited number of Kosovarfamilies. The fight to obtain almost 12,000 US dollars was tough, and political pressure repeatedlyattempted to intrude the MHC, sometimes successfully.

In Bosnia, such an institutional body with two-fold objectives was not established.

10 Principle 6: Effective and rapid reconstruction requires a role-casting operation by central and/or regional

government leaders.11 The Department of Reconstruction was established by UNMIK regulation 2000/19. The Department may make

policy recommendations on the formulation of an overall strategy for reconstruction in Kosovo, and a public

reconstruction investment programme.12 HCIC (the Humanitarian Community Information Centre) 2001.13 HR Guidelines 2001, paragraph 3.4.


Both the Return and Reconstruction Programmes were directly inspired and tied to Article 1 ofthe Seventh Annex of the Dayton Peace Agreement.14

Soon after the first phase of providing shelter to refugees, the so-called linking first aid todevelopment phase saw the NGOs as the main actors in tackling physical reconstruction, thereintegration of the minority return, and job opportunity creation. As stated in a note by ECHO(European Community Humanitarian Organisation) to its Implementing Partners,15 from 1996 to1999 the NGOs operating in the field in Bosnia and Herzegovina had to pursue the multifacetedobjectives with the external help of the Reconstruction and Return Task Force (RRTF)16—a veryvariegated international entity essentially supervising and acting in favour of the fulfilment of theDayton Peace Agreement. The Municipalities, in turn, participated in the HRP when the NGOnotified them of their incipient physical and social intervention, the need to free the occupiedhouses, and the requirement for bureaucratic actions such as the checking of technical documentsand the signing of the tripartite agreement documents.

Contrary to the case of Kosovo, where a temporary government was immediately established,in Bosnia, soon after the war, the local government was weak enough to let the NGOs have aprominent role within the whole reconstruction activity. As a matter of fact, the NGOs in Bosniawere much more involved in the overall problems of their specific area and they acted with amultidisciplinary approach.

In Kosovo the NGOs were rigorously selected after the first emergency phase. At the beginningof 2001, the EAR—the actual main donor of the HRP—drastically reduced the number of NGOsto less than half that of the previous year. Those selected had their role relegated to assuringcorrect construction from the technical and administrative points of view. Another relativelysmall, but extremely hard and contradictory task, consisted in fostering the target community topropose some of its community members as probable housing beneficiaries—the winners of thereconstruction lottery. This was a hard and contradictory task due to the reluctance of the villageor neighbourhood communities to immediately comply from scratch with rules that even inEurope are rather innovative such as the gender balance. Such a compulsory rule was literallyimposed on the Village Reconstruction Committee, and the NGOs were responsible for making itrespected and fruitful, despite the stable male-chauvinist Kosovar society. In fact the NGOsignored the ‘‘imposition’’ and mediated the modern societal assumptions with the localcommunities’ traditional way of living. Besides that the NGOs followed the suggestions of the

14 The Dayton Peace Agreement was negotiated in Dayton, Ohio, USA and signed on 21 November 1995 by the

representatives of the parties involved in the 1992–1995 Balkan war. On 14 December the agreement was ratified in

Paris. The signatories of the agreement were from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia and the Federal

Republic of Yugoslavia.15 Note to ECHO’s Implementing Partners in Bosnia and Herzegovina New Monitoring and Project Support

Procedures, Return and Rehabilitation projects Rev A, 21 June 1999.16 The RRTF (the Reconstruction and Return Task Force) comprises the OHR, UNHCR, the European

Commission (EC), the European Commission Humanitarian Office (ECHO), the governments of Germany, the United

States and the Netherlands, the World Bank, the United Nations Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) and

its International Police Task Force (IPTF), the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the

United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the International Management Group (IMG), the International

Organisation for Migration (IOM), the Commission for Real Property Claims of Displaced Persons and Refugees

(CRPC) and SFOR (Stabilisation Force).


Housing Reconstruction Guidelines consisting of a thorough on-site social assessment only of thefamilies included in the lists previously drawn up (see Section 5).

Apart from the EU ‘‘impositions’’, the role of the NGOs in Kosovo was pivotal and crucial asusual. It was intended to be much more sectoral than previously in Bosnia, where the NGOs hadhad to deal with income-generating aspects in addition to technical projects, and where the socialtasks were not related to the beneficiary selection procedure only, but also to the reintegration ofreturnees (see footnote 15). In Bosnia the authoritative and legitimacy role of the reconstructionprocess was mainly played by the NGOs. The presence of the international organisations waslimited to setting the general guidelines and monitoring the housing reconstruction activities,while the Municipalities acted diffidently in the beginning in particular.

On the other hand in Kosovo, only the MCH had the right and the responsible duty to takefinal, irreversible decisions on housing reconstruction activity. Taking into consideration that eventhe Municipal Assembly decisions had to be ratified by the Municipal Administrators (UNMIKinternational personnel rotating and running de facto the municipalities in Kosovo), the MHC—in some cases chaired by locals—had the competent power to take any relevant decision on whatmade some families lucky rather than others, rejecting the technical documentation in cases thatdid not respond to the formal, substantial requirements stated in the Guidelines. The MHC wasthe institutional focal point for potential beneficiaries, NGOs, Local Government and the InterimCentral Government.

Its overall objectives were clearly stated by the Guidelines as:

(a) To enhance the capacity of the Municipality to run cross-sector post-emergency reconstruc-tion and development of the municipal areas;

(b) To co-ordinate, link and merge various kinds of national and international projects andinitiatives;

(c) To create positive dynamics and synergies in the municipality and to develop durable,sustainable solutions to improve the lives of the inhabitants;

(d) To assist and support the agencies and NGOs, implementing housing reconstruction projectsin every way;

(e) To support the demands for capacity building of the municipal authorities;(f) To verify and approve beneficiaries as proposed by implementing NGOs for reconstruction

assistance; and(g) To ensure that the requested documentation for housing (re)construction follows the

requirements, with the MHC receiving assistance from the Municipal Department for Urbanism.

The MHC was attended by heterogeneous entities, directly and indirectly involved in theHousing Reconstruction process:

1. The Municipal Administrator who in theory chairs the meetings;2. The representatives of the Housing Reconstruction Coordination Unit;3. The main NGOs involved in the HRP;4. The Municipal Department chiefs (Department of Reconstruction, Cadastral Department,

Urbanism, Social Welfare etc.);5. International Municipal Officers working for the integration of minorities in the Local

Community;


6. Generally not more than two representatives of the Municipal Assembly; and7. Associations and other institutions such as UNHCR, OSCE and the International

Organisation for Migration (IOM).

Initially (at the beginning of the HRP in 2000), different conflicting interests converged on theMHC: those of the local administrations aiming to satisfy family housing needs, and the NGOsattempting to gain the greatest advantages in terms of the easiest procedures and least interferencein the beneficiary selection and HRP implementation phase. On the other hand, the newly electedrepresentatives of the Municipal Assembly (particularly those allowed to attend the MHC) had toshow gratitude to their voters, and sometimes together with other MHC local members attemptedto take advantage of their position by proposing friends and relatives as beneficiaries. At the sametime the international administrators were proud to perform highly efficient management andsocial justice criteria in housing allocation, though the hard facts show that the best MHCperformances are attributable to those chaired by locals appointed by the MunicipalAdministrators.

It is questionable whether the MHC model as such might be replicable in other contexts withoutthe UN administrative structure and institutional authority in place.

It is, however, clear that the MHC’s compliance with the rules set in the Guidelines and makinga fair selection of the most deserving vulnerable families had to achieve two hidden and essentialobjectives:

(a) compliance with the most elementary rules of transparency and(b) guided practice of the elementary exercise of democracy.

The MHC has given the participants the genuine impression that the institutions have beenbuilt satisfactorily and that they are performing perfectly well. It has thus emphasised the basicinstitutional and governmental role of the international agencies, and the role of theMunicipalities that UNMIK immediately set up thanks to resolution 2045.17

The locally elected administrators who have been involved in the MHC were initially sceptical,but their rapid change of attitude has been quite impressive. At the beginning they seemed timid,diffident, and aggressive at the same time. Their modest interest was obvious. At the end of theHRP they all were proud to have learned the rules of the game, and to realise that the game was—at least apparently—working well.

This game intrigued the participants as they discovered that the responsibility for selectionof beneficiaries depended on a complex system of rules, and not upon a single person or asingle organisation (i.e. the single MHC members or the NGOs). For this reason, thosesame NGOs (especially those who stayed for a long period) were keener to attend the MHCmeetings rather than to stick to the instruction Manual only, even if it had been issued by theirdonors, such as the European Agency of Reconstruction (the main reconstruction donor inKosovo).

17 The municipalities were established on the basis of regulation 0.2000/45. It ‘‘establishes provisional institutions for

democratic and autonomous self-government at the municipal level as a step in the progressive transfer of

administrative responsibilities from United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), which will

oversee and support the consolidation of these institutions.’’


During the MHC meeting every single problem the NGOs encountered in the field was broughtin and promptly discussed i.e. the arrogance of the village leaders, the lies of potential beneficiariesresponding to the social assessment, the difficulties of materials provisioning during theMacedonian turmoil, the threats from the those who did not received housing assistance, and lastbut not least, the relationship with the donors.

The link between the MHC and the main housing reconstruction donors was assured by theHousing Co-ordination Unit (regional representatives of the Housing Directory, attending theMHC) which refers to the Central Housing Committee (CHC) through the Housing Directorycentral office.

In other words, the decision-making funding committee (the CHC) was two steps ahead of theMHC. Quite often, whatever had to be communicated to the CHC (documented requests,problems with implementing partners, operative suggestions and so forth) was first passed to theHousing Directorate, which unilaterally screened the messages passed and eventually includedthem in the ‘‘any other issues’’ of the CHC agenda. The Regional Housing Co-ordinators havenever been invited to attend CHC meetings.

Perhaps due to long bureaucratic (and inefficient) communication along the

MHC-Regional Housing Co-ordination Unit-Housing Directorate-CHC

line, the way through was somewhat blocked most of the time. As a result, the MunicipalDepartment Administrators tried to contact the CHC members directly, and donors opted tobypass top-down communication, informing the implementing partner who then reported to theMHC.

In conclusion, the MHC was however an important and successful experience that might easilybe considered a best practice of the post-emergency Housing Reconstruction Programme. It wasconceived and has been working as a structural part of the United Nations system, temporarilydisplaced to manage the reconstruction of politically uncertain areas. In any case it has sufferedfrom the bulky, heavy bureaucratic system that most of the time has impeded efficient verticalcommunication and the adoption of very quick-impact professional actions.

The general overview of the HRP assigns a definitive favourable opinion to the MHC. It hasguaranteed:

1. A peaceful and impartial approach to beneficiary selection;2. The enthusiastic interest of the locals in their own problems, and the interest in minority

groups;3. The building up of a sense of community (within the MHC itself and in the so-called Village

Reconstruction Committee); and

MHCMunicipalHousing

Committee

HD

Housing Directorate

CHCCentral Housing

Committee


4. An understanding of what democracy is (not only a word, but a collective action with anawareness of the delicate situation concerning the selection of beneficiaries.

5. The selection of beneficiaries

The HRP did not assume that everybody was a ‘‘helpless victim’’ requiring every possible kindof assistance. The beneficiaries of the HRP were only the most vulnerable families whose houseshad been affected by war.18

Whereas in Bosnia the UNHCR lists were simply verified by the NGOs and then revised andeventually approved by the assisted municipality, in Kosovo the beneficiary selection procedurecarried out by the MHC was a complex, but not complicated procedure.

In Kosovo the beneficiary selection was a rather mechanical19 procedure. It was conceived insuch a way as to free it as much as possible from the personal interests of the MHC members.

It was therefore articulated in different subsequent steps:

1. Setting up the list of potential beneficiaries identified by the most important and reliableorganisations, either international or local, such as UNHCR, IOM, OSCE and various NGOs;

2. Listing the beneficiaries proposed by the Village Reconstruction Committee (a sort ofcommunity-based organisation at the village or neighbourhood level);

3. On-site social assessment by the NGOs of those families who obtained the highest score in theprevious two steps; and

4. MHC evaluation aimed at final approval.

In some municipalities a score calculation was proposed in an Excel worksheet format so as toemphasise the algorithmic features of beneficiary selection.

On the other hand, the social assessment evaluation made by the NGOs, aimed at the socio-economic evaluation of identified potential beneficiary families was also confirmed by the VillageReconstruction Committee. Twelve parameters made up the basis of the social assessment:

1. No. of family members.2. No. of children under 12.3. No. of elderly members.4. No. of handicapped and chronically ill members.5. No. of female-headed families.6. Living in their own damaged house.7. Occupying someone else’s house.8. Living with extended families.9. Living in an isolated community.

10. Living in temporary community shelters.11. Living in tents, prefabs or with a host family.12. Household income.

18 HR Guidelines 2001, paragraphs 3.3 and 3.3.1.19 HR Guidelines 2001, paragraph 3.4.


In some MHCs of the Peja/Pec region, in order to check the actual right of a proposedbeneficiary family to be definitively assisted, and to make the evaluation even more mechanical,the Regional Housing Co-ordination Unit adopted statistical data extracted from previous socialassessments on families, which have subsequently been assisted in the same or other municipalitiesof the region.

These statistical figures were then to be compared with the social assessment results of theproposed beneficiary families submitted to the MHC for final approval. The internationals, butalso the MHC participants who were not very familiar with the social environment, could evaluateevery single family case proposed for housing assistance on the basis of whether or not it matchedthe regional or municipal average.

Again these methods were set up and diffused in order to encourage aseptic rather than biasedevaluations (Table 2).

At the end of the reconstruction season, this method has also revealed a clear picture of thepoverty conditions in the municipalities, since—by definition—the benefiting families were alsothe most vulnerable people. The poverty indicators in turn establish the reference points for theremaining HR allocation per each municipality.

6. Minorities

The integration of minorities within the almost mono-racial Kosovar post-war society has beena crucial issue.20 The HRP has been among other things a thorough test bench for such aquestion, for both the local and international community in Kosovo.

The Dayton Peace Agreement stated that in Bosnia not only refugees, but also InternallyDisplaced Persons (IDP), should be able to repatriate to their pre-war country and home oforigin. The implicit objective was the reversal of ethnic cleansing via promotion of the return ofpopulations that had been forcibly displaced during the war (Phuong, 2000). Such an ambitious

Table 2

Averages and percentages per municipality of the Social Assessment Evaluations of housing assisted families

Peja Region

Municipalities

No. of

family

members

No. of

children

under 12

No. of

elderly

members

No. of

handicapped

or chronically

ill members

No. of

female-

headed

families

Living in

their own

damaged

house

Living in

Temporary

Community

Shelter

Living in

tent, prefab

or host

family

Decan 7.0 2.1 1.8 0.5 9.8% 20.4% 9.4% 53.2%

Giakova 7.7 2.0 2.4 0.1 8.1% 11.7% 6.0% 39%

Peje 6.9 1.7 0.5 0.6 20.6% 13.23% 1.94% 25.2%

Klina 7.7 2.8 0.1 0.04 7.5% 15.7% 1% 10.5%

Istog 6.7 2.3 0.1 0.03 1.8% 12.4% 0.9% 16.5%

Reg. average 7.3 2.2 1.0 0,3 9.9% 14,6% 3.6% 27.7%

Data extracted from the final report of the 2001 HRP in Peia/Pec Region.

20 Section 2, Observance of internationally recognised standards, UNMIK Regulation no. 1, 1999.


and explicit commitment to ensure that each refugee or IDP be able to return to pre-waraccommodation was taken in Bosnia in the aftermath of ethnic cleansing, which resulted in thecreation of almost entirely homogenous territories in communities which had been ethnicallymixed. In Kosovo the situation was not very different. After the NATO bombing, Serbs and otherminorities (Roma, Ashkali, Bosniaks, Egyptians) ran away or were forcibly obliged to leave thecountry to seek refuge, mainly in Serbia and Montenegro.

The HRP devoted particular attention and special programmes to the minority groups. In thisregard the HRP Guidelines 2001 (Section 3.3.2) state that the objective ‘‘(y) is to support and

promote co-existence and reconciliation in communities with mixed ethnic backgrounds and singleethnic communities, through a balanced allocation of reconstruction activities in minority

communities and the surrounding majority areas.This is in order to support stability, sustainability, security and the future development of the

society.’’In order to guarantee a ‘‘balanced allocation of reconstruction activities in minority communities

and the surrounding majority areas (y) (only) a fair and substantial proportion of the total efforts’’have been recommended. In other words a percentage of projects for minorities were implementedcompared with the proportion of minority ethnic groups within the Municipal community. Inspite of this, the EAR, made the achievement of 10% minority rehabilitation—within thebenefited community—compulsory to its NGOs . Such a discrepancy between the HR Guidelines2001 on one side and the Donor Manual on the other has once again determined unclearobjectives for MHC management.

Against all the odds, the identification and selection of vulnerable ethnic minority familiesproceeded apparently regularly within the beneficiary selection process, though special attentionwas devoted to them mainly because of the bitter grudge left by the war and also because of thegood practice of respecting minority groups.

In each MHC, the minority groups have been represented by:

1. Local Community Officers (LCO) (UNMIK international staff working in the Municipalities);2. Local representatives of the main ethnic minority groups; and3. Representatives of international organisations such as OSCE and UNHCR.

All of them specifically contributed to focus due attention on minority issues, and to identifyvulnerable minorities in need of housing assistance.

As of the end of October 2001, almost 6% of the total number of vulnerable and war-damagedaffected cases (the highest Kosovo-wide) have been approved by the MHC and have benefitedfrom housing assistance in the Peja/Pec region. This reflects the approximate figure of minorityethnic groups in the region.21 Special Projects were not included.

Only one Special Programme was implemented in 2001. It was aimed at the Serb return to thePeja/Pec region, creating a new enclave under the surveillance and responsibility of the KFOR.After a Preliminary Rapid Damage Assessment (PRDA) to estimate the rough repair andreconstruction costs of the villages for which the Serb return was planned, donors allocated thefunds and implementing partners started reconstruction. The MHC was bypassed.

21 In Klina, for instance, minority families represent 1.6% of the overall population, whereas 4.4% of the total

beneficiaries have been approved by the MHC this year.


The return occurred and the new enclave was created. Not surprisingly, the local majority—theKosovar Albanians—demonstrated against the Serb Return project from which they were totallyexcluded: they were not involved and would not have received any benefit from it.

Far away from this is the recent experience in Bosnia, where programmes of income generationand local capacity building were conditional on the acceptance, by the municipality, of the returnof minorities. Minority returns in those Bosnian municipalities are now also seen as a way ofimproving the living conditions of the majority population (Hallerg(ard, 1998).

The NGOs were far away from implementing integrated projects for return, as were the MHCthat had to take over such a delicate task.

Though ‘‘minorities projects shall normally be processed through the MHC and follow similar

procedures to majority area projects’’ (see footnote 21) apparently regardless of the SpecialProjects and with any exception to be processed by the Municipal Administrators (International),the opportunity was not taken to fulfil the general and specific objectives stated in theReconstruction Guidelines and to aim for the reintegration of vulnerable minorities within thelocal community22, ‘‘(y) in line with the overall UNMIK policy of stabilising minority communities

and of working towards the establishment of conditions conducive to return’’(see footnote 22).For this reason, the Special Programme for Serb Return, though accepted in principle, has been

strongly criticised because it did not show any regard for the above-mentioned objectives andactions recommended in the HRP Guidelines 2001.

In fact, the HR Guidelines have inspired and prompted the management of the whole HRP.The MHC has been its best practice, where all efforts towards the establishment of simpledemocratic actions have been successfully made, and where NGOs (local and international) wereinvolved, as well as the main stakeholders of the reconstruction and development process. Thatwould have been the best place to properly negotiate the Serb Return and to manage Serbintegration

The extensive experience gained in Bosnia aimed at ethnic reconciliation has shown that thethorough involvement of the NGOs in this specific matter has facilitated the return of minorities,once the appropriate strategic actions and cautions had been taken, such as:

* Gradual creation of opportunities for opposing ethnic family groups to meet, such as children’ssummer camps;

* Economic opportunities;* Participation in common activities for the reconstruction of community services such as

schools, libraries or social centres; and* Self-aided reconstruction of community services.

The role of the NGO has been always that of a buffer position between the communities, in theeffort to integrate the families into real-life occupation.

The role of the MHC was to create room for capacity building of the future municipal officers,and to build up the institutional milestones of democracy. The local MHC members were ready totackle the reintegration problems. The clear signs of their availability were manifest during anurban planning exercise where the Serb community was involved and was asked to talk abouttechnical issues only. This was a great step forward, and it is a pity that nobody noted it.

22 HR Guidelines 2001, paragraph 3.3.2.


7. Conclusions

The HRP in Kosovo has been a noteworthy experience. Analytical criticism has been necessaryin order to make this experience understood and to pick up the best practices from it. Theunavoidable mistakes and the incomprehensible decisions taken throughout the entire reconstruc-tion process must at least be made intelligible. Hopefully the MHC has a future wherever post-emergency reconstruction pursues the setting up of the simplest rules of democracy in order tomake a town start breathing and living again. Among the other issues carried out by the MHC, amethod has been identified as appropriate. The practice of mechanical actions, like the algorithm,could be considered a way to recover from the excessive excited exaltation brought about by thewar. In Kosovo the war was fought house-to-house. Everybody was involved, no one was excluded.During the war there was fear, and afterwards came a domination of the sense of omnipotence thatkeeps exaltation high. Both render people blind and arrogant at the same time. Mechanical actionsand algorithms bring people back to normality and give them a view of different values that wereconsidered dead—first of all of democracy and the sense of community. The MHC has been aunique experience. In Bosnia, on the contrary, the best practice is in fact represented by the NGOsactions. Their strategic territorial position and their integrated and participatory approachaddressed to refugees and IDPs is to be kept in mind. In Kosovo we must also keep in mind thedouble counting for damage assessment and the related regrettable consequences.

Doubts remain about the decisions taken for economic recovery in Kosovo. The technologiesadopted for physical rehabilitation and the features of the entire reconstruction process are linkedto macro-economic motivations. It is inconceivable that the policy-makers of the Kosovoreconstruction strategies did not take into consideration the appropriateness of technologies suchas the old and innovative adobe, and did not help the local building materials producers in thefirst instance.

Among the reported experiences, the temporary government of the United Nations is certainlyreplicable, though it should be rephrased and better reconceived. Its presence has given reliabilityto the whole Kosovo reconstruction process, as most people still believe in the UN.

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