Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is a middle income country with an estimated 3.8 million inhabitants. The 1992-1995 war devastated the country. Enormous post-war changes – reconstruction, economic and social recovery and a shift to a market economy – upset gender relations and decreased women’s access to employment and resources. To this day, the needs of the survivors of sexual violence in the 1992-1995 war have not been satisfactorily addressed. 

Today, women in Bosnia and Herzegovina have one of the region’s lowest economic activity rates, and live a precarious reality: Disproportionately subject to violence, they have limited access to employment and face deep-rooted patriarchal stereotypes that marginalise them and exclude them from political and decision-making processes. Roma women, in particular, are severely disadvantaged and marginalised. 

UN Women has been in Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2008 when it set up a project office that was strengthened to a Country Office with a resident representative in 2013. Our work for gender equality and women’s empowerment focuses on three main areas:

• Ending violence against women
• Peace and security
• National planning and budgeting 

UN Women supports Bosnia and Herzegovina as it adopts global standards to achieve gender equality, and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programmes and services to implement these standards. 

In addition, we work closely with our UN, NGO and civil society partners to develop future interventions. UN Women launched an International Gender Working Group, a platform where embassies and international organizations exchange information about their work on gender equality and the empowerment of women and their activities in the country. 

UN Women also chairs the UN Country Team’s UN Results Group on the empowerment of women, which coordinates joint UN efforts in Bosnia and Herzegovina on economic and political empowerment and preventing violence against women and girls.