FACT SHEET: PRO-Future II: Trust, Understanding, and Responsibility for the Future

Speeches Shim

Project Snapshot

Total Funding: $5.3 million*

Project Duration: September 2017-September 2022

Implementing Partners:

   Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and core local partners: Caritas BiH, Institute for Youth Development (KULT), Inter-Religious Council, Forum of Tuzla Citizens, Helsinki Citizens Assembly in Banja Luka, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Republika Srpska, and the Nansen Dialogue Center in Mostar

 *Includes 6 percent matching funds from CRS 

The Challenge

While political, economic, and social stability in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has improved since the war ended in 1995, BiH society remains divided and unable to develop a common national vision. Divisive politics have a national and regional dimension that extends to war commemorations, court decisions on war crimes, and elections and regional events in Serbia and Croatia, even Russia and Turkey. Ahead of the upcoming, it is expected that political rhetoric will be even more divisive.

Our Program

Through the project PRO Future II: Trust, Understanding, and Responsibility for the Future, USAID engages citizens and stakeholders at all levels of government – municipal, cantonal, entity, regional, and state – to institutionalize commitments to reconciliation within the framework of the USAID-supported Platform for Peace. This follow-on to USAID’s first PRO-Future project will continue to encourage attitudinal and behavioral changes in key leaders and citizens in BiH for reconciliation and sustainable peace. 

Implementation and Results

This project consolidates progress across the 60 original municipalities of the flagship PRO-Future project, and targets 15 new municipalities, five of them from neighboring countries. The program works with influential politicians to discuss the consequences of ethno-nationalism and promote reconciliation instead. Core PRO-Future II activities include working with ministries to adopt the Platform for Peace at the national level and supporting war victims to advocate for equal rights. It also trains new, young politicians to develop their debate and peace-building skills and knowledge. The program engages the business community to help politicians understand how reconciliation also creates a more desirable business environment. 

 

The program publicly engages religious leaders and works with them to lead national and community reconciliation activities. Specific project activities include arranging visits of multi-ethnic religious leaders to war memorials and other places of suffering (together), facilitating community interreligious dialogue, and exposing youth to multiple places of worship other than their own.

 

The project works with influential journalists and editors to encourage reporting that gives a voice to multiple narratives coming out of the 1992-95 war, not just one, and informs the public of peace-building efforts of key influencers (in the political, government, religious, and civil society spheres). The project will sponsor a regional award for journalists who regularly cover reconciliation. The program will also broadcast a program “Peace Talks” and produce a documentary of peace-building narratives for a large audience in BiH and the region.