Human Development

The conflict and the social polarisation derived from the ethnic orientation of the political and social structures emerged in the aftermath of the war has determined grave imbalances in access to resources and services. Increased poverty in BiH is an undeniable fact: the population overall results 65% poorer than what it used to be in the pre-war period.

The whole phenomenon presents numerous intervening factors that have contributed shaping population transformations and general living standards: population aging determined again by the war and the consequent emigration; progressive disappearance of the middle class; appearance of groups mostly susceptible to poverty.
The last of the above-mentioned elements deserves particular attention.

Vulnerable categories
Nine years after Dayton, BiH still faces a major refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) problem with more than 600,000 people living outside the country and about half a million residing in BiH but still accommodated in other areas than the one of origin.
The most serious human rights concern in the country relate, in fact, to the return process of refugees to the country.
Both refugees and IDPs are increasingly returning to their places of origin thanks to an improved implementation of the property restitution law. In particular, the UNHCR Reports registered 80,000 minority returnees (those whose ethnic community formed a minority in the place of return).
In reality a great number of returns revealed to be unsustainable because of the precluded access to employment, social security and general services.
The overall return process is � at any rate � very far from completion: at the end of 2001, only 40% of refugees had been able to regain the lost property. The situation results even more critical in RS were rate of returns barely reaches 20%.
These enormous numbers of people see their basic human security imperiled by the living conditions the current system nowadays confine them to.

The elderly, making in 2001 about 65% of the entire population of BiH, are also to be listed among the new vulnerable groups: average pension schemes range between 110 and 170 KM. Moreover, the collapse of the formal employment system creates a strong unbalance between the number of pensions currently being claimed and the resources available.
Ultimately, special consideration should be paid to youths: war and its consequences were in fact extremely visible on this part of the population.
A considerable number of children (estimated in 2000 to be almost 3000) are orphans or of unknown parentage. Another peculiar problem widely affecting local young population is that of emigration with the depending phenomenon of brain drain.
Among the ones who emigrated in the Nineties was a great number of young people: the majority of them did not come back. Emigration rates are still high among the young section of the population: scarcity of employment, ethnic discrimination, lack of proper educational opportunities constitute the engine of the reiteration of the phenomenon.
On the other hand, educated work force is highly requested in several western States. Facilitations for Bosnian youths willing to leave the country in search for �better� opportunities have been put in place in many developed countries determining a constant outflow of the most promising force in BiH.

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