Knowledge & Analysis

2025 Assessment – Report for Bosnia and Herzegovina

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The 2025 assessment finds that constitutional safeguards for civil society in Bosnia and Herzegovina worked in practice, but did not remove the chilling effect of restrictive initiatives, particularly in Republika Srpska. The Constitutional Court of BiH struck down a Republika Srpska law classifying foreign-funded CSOs as “agents of foreign influence”, and the Council of Ministers adopted the first state-level strategy for cooperation with civil society.

Key findings

By its decision of 29 May 2025, the Constitutional Court of BiH annulled the Republika Srpska Law on the Special Register and Publicity of the Work of Non-Profit Organisations as incompatible with the Constitution and Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

22% of CSOs reported that their organisation or members had faced threats, attacks, property damage, unlawful searches or interference with communications, up from 14% in 2024. Defamation complaints in Republika Srpska reached 206 by June 2025.

Public funding for CSOs remained fragmented, with no consolidated register and an estimated BAM 100 million or more allocated each year. Only 9% of CSOs rated it as transparent and fair, down from 23% in 2024.

The Strategy for Creating an Enabling Environment for Civil Society Development 2025–2029 was adopted with a budgeted Action Plan of BAM 789,000. The Federation of BiH, Republika Srpska and Brčko District still have no strategies of their own.

While 74% of CSOs took part in at least one consultation, only 6.5% experienced one that gave access to the draft from the start and at least 15 days to comment. The Advisory Body of the Council of Ministers for Cooperation with NGOs had no members appointed by the end of the year.

The share of CSOs employing paid staff recovered to 69%, from 58% in 2024, but 37% of CSOs still depended on a single dominant funding source.