VOLUNTEERING INFRASTRUCTURE

Herzegovina include CSR in their policy, however this has not been done in a systematic wayand nor has it been promoted within the communities. In the future, CSR will definitely be aninteresting topic to be developed and promoted by the business sector. The civil society sector inBosnia and Herzegovina is not entirely prepared for these processes, with some exceptions, suchas CSR Plus, the consultancy agency focused on the promotion and development of corporatesocial responsibility in Bosnia and Herzegovina 6 .Regarding the international organisations and institutions actively involved in promotionand development of volunteering, these are United Nation Volunteers (UNV) in Bosniaand Herzegovina and the Office for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Bosnia andHerzegovina. These two international organisations through their various programmes providedsupport to volunteering, especially in area of lobbying for volunteering legal framework and forthe recognition of volunteering by local governments.Unfortunately the Delegation of the European Commission in Bosnia and Herzegovina stilldoes not provide specific funding for promotion and development of volunteering in Bosniaand Herzegovina, even if some of the projects funded by this institution include volunteering astool or methodology for project implementation. This is mainly due to the non-recognition ofvolunteering by the state government which is the one defining priorities for the Instrument forPre Accession (IPA) funding, in negotiation in European Union. More efforts should be made bycivil society sector in aiming to lobby the state government to include volunteering as one of thepriorities in frame of the IPA funding.6. CSRPlus, http://www.odgovornost.ba/6. FUNDING OPPORTUNITIESCurrently in Bosnia and Herzegovina there is no funding focused onthe promotion and development of volunteering or of the volunteeringinfrastructure. Some of the international donor organisations recogniseimportance of volunteering and require or welcome the contribution ofvolunteering and volunteers to project implementation. The lack of fundingsituation should change in the future because these opportunities donot meet the need for more work on the promotion and development ofvolunteering in Bosnia and Herzegovina.Regarding the governmental funds, one of the examples is the funding ofvoluntary actions planned and implemented by secondary school student’scouncils. The Ministry for Family, Youth and Sport in Government ofRepublic of Srpska administers this funding.59 Volunteering infrastructure in Europe 4 Bosnia-Herzegovina