Project Overview
During the Bosnian war, much of the country's infrastructure was destroyed, severly disrupting economic activites.

Islamic Relief began providing emergency relief in 1992. When open hostilities ceased with the signing of the Dayton Peace accord in 1995 Islamic Relief also began undertaking long-term reconstruction and income and employment generation programmes.

Project Background
The principal difficulty facing returnees is the lack of employment or sources of income. Providing loans allows them to initiate or expand business ventures and create their own employment and sources of income.

Many families are unable to return to their pre-war homes because they were damaged and made uninhabitable during the war. Their situation is worsened by the fact that they are commonly facing eviction. Providing low cost housing loans allows them to repair and return to their pre-war homes.

Project Objectives
The aim of the project is to alleviate poverty through the provision of microcredit to assist in the creation of income and employment generation opportunities, as well as low cost housing loans for the repair and reconstruction of war damaged housing.

It is hoped that this will contribute to improving the economic, social, and political welfare of borrowers, their families and the local community.

Project Activities
The microcredit programme began in April 2001. Since that time it has distributed almost 1,500 business and housing loans to vulnerable categories of the population.

Business loans aim to assist in the creation of income and employment generation opportunities for micro-enterprises. The majority of business loans borrowers are returnees to pre-war homes. Housing loans are given for the repair and reconstruction of war damaged housing, over two-thirds of housing loan borrowers are female headed households.

Participants in both programmes are from vulnerable categories of the population and are generally not able to access loans from banks and other financial intermediaries.

Beneficiaries
Vulnerable categories of the population. These include, inter alia, returnees to pre-war homes, widows, and orphan families from all ethnic groups as well as poor persons who would not normally be able to accede to loans from formal financial intermediaries.