Policies through Knowledge: Improving Policy-making Capacities and Processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Although many programs in post-war BiH have sought to deliver technical assistance to public institutions at different levels of government, the policy-making capacities of such institutions remain generally underdeveloped. While there are some procedures in place on the steps of policy formulation and on regulatory impact assessments, such procedures are considered to be open-ended in terms of their application and are considered not to be systematically followed for many important laws. As a result, policies are being adopted without a sound evidence base and frequently without any rigorous assessment of their possible impacts. 

The project aims to address the problems of both a lack of capacity to formulate, monitor and evaluate policies, but also the lack of processes for sound policy-making. It seeks to enhance policy-making procedures and capacities of public institutions in BiH at different levels of government and thus promote evidence-based policy formulation and the monitoring and evaluation of policy implementation that are essential for the EU pre-accession process of BiH as well as the implementation of the Reform Agenda. 

The main outputs of the project are one policy paper and developing of Online Learning Platform containing online educational materials and resources for ten training modules which will be held. Final output will be one public event.

The project is financed by MATRA programme which is aimed to enhance policy-making capacities, procedures and processes of public institutions in BiH. MATRA is a Dutch programme that aims to support the transformation of societies. MATRA is part of the Netherlands Fund for Regional Partnerships of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. More information about the MATRA programme is available at the following link.