Over the first half year of the ‘Building Inclusive Oversight of Security (BIHOS) project, CESS with the Centre for Security Studies (CSS), and the European Defendology Center (EDC) have been implementing the project’s ‘start-up and assessment phase’ in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Netherlands. In February 2023 a planning meeting was held in Groningen where partners discussed the project from training methodology to research concepts and from logistical implementation to outreach. In May CESS staff undertook assessment missions to Banja Luka, Mostar and Sarajevo. Next, we organised four expert labs in June, in which senior level oversight actors were brought together in helping to refine the BIHOS research and capacity-building agendas. As of September we are ready to enter the projects’ ‘capacity-building and research phase’.

BIHOS seeks to strengthen democratic governance and inclusive oversight of the security sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina on state, entity, and canton level. By investing in capacities through providing tools, skills, and techniques to oversight actors; fostering cooperation between parliaments, civil society organisations and other oversight actors; and by promoting a culture of oversight that is critical and constructive, BIHOS contributes to better informed, more effective and inclusive oversight of the security sector in BiH.

Read more about BIHOS here >