The OSCE has been instrumental in promoting security co-operation in BiH.

The OSCE Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina has always been, and remains, an indispensable partner in ensuring full implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement. It has brought a broad range of logistical resources, professional expertise and political input to the project of building a stable democracy in Bosnia BiH, which is the surest bulwark against a return to the violence and trauma of the early 1990s.

After the war, the OSCE Mission successfully supervised a series of elections, starting in 1996. These marked the country’s slow but steady progress away from endemic crises and widespread, deeply-rooted suspicion and towards modern norms of democratic dialogue. The success of the OSCE’s endeavours was made clear when it was able to transfer the remaining responsibilities for elections to the BiH Election Commission, in 2002.

The OSCE has been instrumental in promoting security co-operation, and has been active in fostering and strengthening the development of civil society in BiH, on the premise that a country recovering from the disastrous effects of war will, in the final analysis, not be healed by outsiders, but by the enlightened and determined efforts of its own citizens.

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