Beitrag zu IOM Bosnia and Herzegovina Resilience Initiative



Contract partner: IOM - International Organisation for Migration - Austria Country: Bosnien und Herzegowina Funding amount: € 1.500.000,00 Project start: 01.11.2021 End: 31.01.2024

Short Description:

Overall goal


The goal of the IOM Bosnia Herzegovina Resilience Initiative (BHRI) is to contribute to peacebuilding and peace preservation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The overall objective of the programme is to strengthen positive political and social actors and discourses to provide alternatives to extremist and radicalizing voices and influences.


Expected results


The Austrian contribution will support the following results:

Result 1: Increased civic engagement of youth and citizens for positive change in their communities:

The project will empower youth in advocating and campaigning for youth issues, strengthening youth involvement in local decision-making processes and citizen engagement with authorities. Fostering two-way communication between citizens and local officials will result in local decisions that better reflect community needs and aspirations. Networking between local government institutions should result in needs-based tailoring and service delivery for youth at the local level.

Result 2: Increased audience reach and engagement with positive media content as alternative to divisive and extremist media content:

The Project seeks out and bolsters credible voices to develop and disseminate messages that present an alternative to extremist and divisive rhetoric and thought. While in some cases these may directly counter extremist narratives, they more often attempt to provide more general positive narratives to compete with extremist ones.


Target group / Beneficiaries


The exact target regions will be determined based on discussions with stakeholders, and may include: Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Zenica-Doboj Canton, Central Bosnia Canton, Una Sana Canton, West Herzegovina), Republika Srpska (Eastern Bosnia, Banja Luka, Prijedor) and Brcko District.

2000 youth and citizens will be directly reached with the Austrian contribution. Indirectly, approx. 4 million people will be reached with social media activities. Thereof, 75% will be youth (15-30 years) and 25% adults (40% female and 60% male). The ethnic composition of beneficiaries will be a representative of the project regions/locations. The project will be implemented by IOM and builds on partnerships with local civil society and non-governmental organizations, including a network of over 130 local implementing partners that have been engaged in activities.


Activities


- Build capacity in youth Leadership;

- Create regional networks of youth leaders;

- Support advocacy on youth issues;

- Support organization of youth-led initiatives and activities;

- Establish two-way communication between citizens and local governments;

- Support networking between local government institutions for needs-based tailoring and service delivery for youth

- Build capacity in digital activism;

- Strengthen collaboration between young community media journalist;

- Support creation of positive media content.


Context


Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) faces major challenges, including socioeconomic gridlock, real and perceived corruption within a wide range of sectors, unresolved legacies from the 1990’s conflicts, and youth marginalization and disenfranchisement. With the territorial demise of the Islamic State (IS) and a more concerted local law enforcement response, the focus of the BiH government and international community has shifted to returning foreign fighters (FTFs) and their families, and the threat they may pose. However, current analysis suggests that fundamentalist Islam in BiH has entered a new phase, adopting a lower profile and seeking to avoid controversy while growing support. Without a foreign war to recruit for or rally around, it appears that fundamentalist groups are trying to appeal to a larger number of people, promoting policies and positions that overlap with mainstream views, and expanding from rural into urban areas. Another recent development is the increasing prominence of extremist ethno-nationalist groups. Their rhetoric revolves around the need to protect specific ethno-religious identities, portrays their group as the sole victims of the most recent war, and advocates for narrow electoral interests. In this environment, national political actors continue to be the real drivers of extremism, with malign foreign influences not only going unchecked, but often being welcomed.

Across Bosnian society, and particularly among youth, low civic engagement, an absence of positive role models and examples, high unemployment, disassociation with communities, government distrust, lack of social opportunities outside of religious and political groups contribute to a general attitude of hopelessness and feeling of marginalization that may lead to radicalization. The lack of moderate voices and content enables radical and ethno-nationalist narratives and hate-speech to proliferate in the media landscape of BiH. Youth’s lack of exposure to alternative, positive, and optimistic stories and narratives about BiH renders them more susceptible to become radicalized and entrapped by ethno-nationalist and extreme influences.

project number 2733-01/2021
source of funding OEZA
sector Frieden und Sicherheit
tied 0
modality
marker Gender: 1, Democracy: 1
  • Policy marker: are used to identify, assess and facilitate the monitoring of activities in support of policy objectives concerning gender equality, aid to environment, participatory development/good governance, trade development and reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health. Activities targeting the objectives of the Rio Conventions include the identification of biodiversity, climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, and desertification.
    • 1= policy is a significant objective of the activity
    • 2= policy is the principal objective of the activity
  • Donor/ source of funding: The ADA is not only implementing projects and programmes of the Austrian Development Cooperation , but also projects funded from other sources and donors such as
    • AKF - Foreign Disaster Fund of the Austrian federal government
    • BMLFUW - Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water
    • EU - Funds of the European Commission
    • Others - various other donors are listed in ADA’s annual business report.
  • Type of Aid – Aid modalities: classifies transfers from the donor to the first recipient of funds such as budget support, core contributions and pooled programmes and funds to CSOs and multilateral organisations, project-type interventions, experts and other technical assistance, scholarships and student costs in donor countries, debt relief, administrative costs and other in-donor expenditures.
  • Purpose/ sector code: classifies the specific area of the recipient’s economic or social structure, funded by a bilateral contribution.
  • Tied/Untied: Untied aid is defined as loans and grants whose proceeds are fully and freely available to finance procurement from all OECD countries and substantially all developing countries. Transactions are considered tied unless the donor has, at the time of the aid offer, clearly specified a range of countries eligible for procurement which meets the tests for “untied” aid.