Analysing EU’s Civil Society Development in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Analysing EU’s Civil Society Development in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Summary/Abstract: The article assesses the scope and successfulness of the EU’s policies for the development of civil society in BIH. Firstly, the article presents why Bosnia should be the beneficiary of civil society development assistance and why the development of a civil society matters in a post-conflict reconstruction process. In its empirical part, the article analyses the EU’s policies for the development of civil society organizations (CSOs) as such; policies for improving their cooperation with the government and state institutions; measures for addressing the conditions of the most vulnerable levels of civil society (e.g. refugees); and whether civil society is included in local ownership of the EU’s policies towards BIH. The analysis shows that even though the EU does have various programmes for the development of civil society that address multiple issues, the results of those policies are mixed, as the influence of Bosnian CSOs, among others, on the decision-making process is still small, the EU’s projects are short-term oriented and incoherent, and the wider civil society still does not trust local non-governmental organizations, while local ownership of the EU’s policies towards BIH is very weak. Because of that, changes in the EU’s policy toward civil society development in BIH are needed.

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