Civil society and state-building - Integrated approaches in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Peace is more than the absence of war. It requires overcoming the ethnopolitical divisions that the war deepened, opening up economic perspectives for the people, creating security, and building a functioning democratic and just polity. The experiences of more than a decade of state-building in Bosnia-Herzegovina show that the international community can achieve this neither alone from the outside, nor from top to bottom. It must instead incorporate as many forces as possible from civil society. The advancement of peace, conflict transformation, and economic development as well as European prospects for the people in the region must go hand in hand.