📋 Tender Overview
Citizens will increase their influence on policy making through their active engagement with civil society organisations. Through improvement of their know-how on civic participation and engagement in civil society alliances, civil society organisations will effectively participate in democratic processes, demand reforms from the authorities, and contribute to social change in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They will increasingly act as advocates for democratic reforms, gender equality, human rights and social inclusion rather than as service providers.
Country/region Topic Period Budget
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Governance
Human rights
Gender
Democratic participation and civil society
Human rights (incl. Women's rights)
Women’s equality organisations and institutions
01.12.2020 - 31.05.2027
CHF 10’670’000
The project in brief
Background The civic participation in policy dialogue and decision making in Bosnia and Herzegovina is limited. In general, citizens do not perceive Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) as legitimate representatives of their interests. Key reasons for this are that the majority of CSOs are detached from their constituencies, more oriented to service provision than to advocacy activities, and financially donordependent. They often lack capacities to articulate citizens’ needs and they compete for funding more than they cooperate. Existing public consultation mechanisms for elaboration of policies are not user friendly nor sufficiently used. The CSOs lack capacities to provide good quality and evidence-based feedback in policy dialogue and to act proactively. As a result, the responsiveness of the authorities on different government levels to the comments received from civil sector is not satisfactory and civic space remains narrow.
Objectives Citizens, in particular socially excluded groups, participate more actively in public affairs, influence policy making, and contribute to democratic reforms and social change in Bosnia and Herzegovina through their engagement with CSOs.
Target groups The primary target groups are citizens - especially women, youth, and socially excluded groups, CSOs, local, entity and state authorities and governments. The secondary target groups are non-for-profit media, academia, companies, social enterprises and the diaspora. Depending on issues selected by the participating CSOs and citizens to be addressed within the project, the project will actively support cooperation with private sector actors, ranging from their financial support to CSOs to joint actions in area of local economic development.
Medium-term outcomes 1. CSOs have intensified their engagement with citizens, particularly with women, youth and socially excluded groups, to articulate their most urgent concerns and demand the authorities at all levels of government to respond to these concerns. 2. CSOs form alliances and work together strategically in demanding reforms and accountability from the authorities in response to citiz
