Bosnia and Herzegovina: Mainstreaming environmental governance: linking local and national action in Bosnia and Herzegovina

As a country emerging from conflict, BiH has made significant strides in economic stabilisation and national cohesion. However, the environment sector is critically stagnant and threatens to become one of the most serious obstacles on the country’s road to European integration. There is a lack of environmental policy and legislation, poorly developed management and implementation capacities, little public participation in environmental decision-making and a lack of reliable information and data. This Joint Programme aims to improve local management of environmental resources and service delivery by improving environmental governance and developing replicable models for environmental planning. 

Interventions centre around providing capacity for developing Local Environmental Action Plans for 40 municipalities, providing seed funding for local service delivery priorities, raising the awareness and national level support for environmental action through an environmental innovation fund, and creating systems for capturing environmental data.

The programme is expected to strengthen management of environmental resources and service delivery through improving local environmental governance and developing replicable models for local environmental planning. The knowledge generated will inform and support national planning and policy. This will help achieve MDGs 1, 6, 7 and 8 in BiH. Implementation will involve the participation of central and local government that have committed to provide co-financing.