On 10 and 11 June, the Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) supported a workshop for the team charged with drafting the proposal for the new counter terrorism strategy for BiH, which will cover the period 2015-2020. The official drafting team is composed of government officials from the security sector, but with the Mission’s support, the workshop was extended to 41 men and women to include representatives of academia, the Regulatory Agency for Communications, and the Inter-religious Council in order to get their views during the drafting process.
This inclusion of vital segments outside of the traditional security sector will allow a “whole of society” approach particularly related to aspects of prevention. At the workshop, the Mission presented its grassroots work aimed at empowering citizens to make a stance against hate crimes, and offered its support to bring the dialogue on violent extremism to the community level. Besides the Mission, international community representatives from EU, OHR, US Embassy, and ICITAP also attended the workshop.
BiH has been without a Counter Terrorism strategy for a year and a half since the previous strategy expired at the end of 2013. The Council of Ministers has now imposed a deadline for drafting of a “BiH Strategy for the Prevention and Fight Against Terrorism” and a detailed Action Plan for its implementation by the end of August. The Mission to BiH will continue to support this process and also aspects of implementation once adopted, lending its cross-dimensional expertise.