General objective of the project “Capacity building of civil society to take part in policy dialogue in BiH” is to involve civil society of Bosnia and Herzegovina in civil dialogue at different levels of government. The project, worth 1.5 million euro, is financed by the EU and will last for two years. The project was initiated in line with the recommendations of the European Union and the Enlargement Strategy which emphasise that “the authorities need to make further efforts to enhance dialogue with the civil society sector and to support its development”. A presentation of the project was organised on 14 December 2009 at the hotel “Bosna” Sarajevo, on the occasion of the official launch of the Project.
„How did we come to the idea to launch this project? On the basis of analysis and conclusions about the problems we encountered in the civil society sector: the non-governmental organisation do not operate on the basis of the actual needs in the field but on the basis of the donors’ requirements; there is a lack of dialogue between the non-governmental sector and the authorities of the country but also a lack of transparency in the allocation of finances from the local funds“ – stated Džemal Hodžić, Task Manager for the Civil Society project within the Delegation of the European Union to BiH.
„What we have concluded is that we would try to resolve some of the problems within the IPA programme. It resulted in a proposal for developing two projects. One of them is this project: “ Capacity building of civil society to take part in policy dialogue in Bosnia and Herzegovina ”“ – stated Hodžić.
Zelah Senior, Team Leader of the Project spoke of the project activities. She emphasised two aspects of the Project:
„The first aspect is developing and strengthening of the existing legal and institutional framework for the development of cooperation and dialogue between the government institutions and civil society organisations, and the second aspect is strengthening the capacity of civil society to participate in a structured civil dialogue“.
Ranko Milanović-Blank, Civil Society Development Advisor and Vanja Škorić, Legal Advisor, spoke of the main features of the project, the civil society terms and civil dialogue, on which the project is based. The emphasis was also put on the ways in which the representatives of the institutions and civil society organisations will be involved in the project.
It was emphasised at the presentation that the civil society organisations can participate in decision making process and contribute with their specific know-how and specific expertise if they are more directly acquainted with the issues and needs of the citizens. Also, a better quality contribution of the civil society organisations in a well structured civil dialogue, result in more efficient and relevant public policies and laws.
The project is being implemented by a consortium which consists of Kronauer Consulting (BiH), COWI (Denmark), ATOS Consulting (UK) and the Government of the Republic of Croatia Office for Cooperation with NGOs (Croatia).
