Sustainable Development of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A Never Reached Goal?

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2018 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: South East Europe, Balkans, grade: B, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, language: English, abstract: This essay views the various development projects and initiatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina concerning their long-term sustainability. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country which after 23 years of direct involvement of the international community in achieving its sustainable political and economic development still exists as a kind of semi-international protectorate. In addition, Bosnia and Herzegovina's market has never been fully transformed into the western economy concept, where the lack of privatization of the state-owned companies is primarily emphasized. It remains doubtful whether the long-lasting intervention of the international community has delivered the necessary results for any kind of future sustainable development of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Ever since the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995) ended, and even before that, various development cooperation projects launched by numerous countries and by the international community as a whole have been implemented in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They targeted countless fields of country's structure; from attempts to increase its administrative effectiveness, through initiatives for the much-needed changes within the field of enhancement of political accountability and the country's infrastructure and finally, initiating moves to make the country's market more open and competitive. If we try to assess the impacts of all these development projects and initiatives and their expected long-term sustainability, it seems that most of them failed to make any sustainable effect. Unfortunately, there are no accurate numbers showing the total amounts of funds invested in the reconstruction of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but in accordance to some sources, only the World Bank Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1996 to 2000 invested 2.7 billion Euro in the reconstruction of the country's basic infrastructure.