The Bosnia and Herzegovina Building Inclusive Oversight of Security (BIHOS) project seeks to strengthen democratic governance and inclusive oversight of the security sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) on state, entity, and canton level. By investing in capacities of oversight actors; fostering cooperation between parliaments, civil society organisations and other actors; and by promoting a culture of oversight that is critical and constructive, BIHOS will seek to contribute to better informed, more effective and inclusive oversight of the security sector in BiH.

BIHOS is implemented through intertwined capacity building and research components. The former includes tailored-made training trajectories, as well as peer-to-peer consultations, training-of-trainers courses, and study visits. The latter consist of a needs assessment exercise, a sequence of policy labs, and a functional analysis, presented in a series of publications. The project is implemented by CESS from the Netherlands, in cooperation with the Atlantic Initiative (AI), the Centre for Security Studies (CSS), and the European Defendology Center (EDC) from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The project runs from January 2023 to June 2026 and is funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

One of the highlights amongst the many capacity building activities in our BIHOS project was the study visit to The Hague. The visit was organised in the week of 18 November for MPs and staffers from the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, National Assembly of Republika Srpska and the Assembly of the Sarajevo Canton. The study visit included meetings at the ministries of Justice and Security, and Defence and the Dutch Parliament, where the BiH MPs engaged in a lively working session with four members of the Dutch parliamentary Defence Committee. Also, that week, there were insightful presentations and discussions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as with the Netherlands Court of Audit. The visit was concluded with a visit to the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Netherlands where we were addressed by Ambassador Almir Šahović. Just like our other BIHOS activities, this visit represented an important step in assisting BiH to establish inclusive oversight of the security sector.