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New Bosnian Government Will Be Crucial to Reconstruction
‘To be successful it must also have good domestic policies and
a Bosnian leadership that supports rapid implementation and
stable economic policies -- in other words, a government
that puts results on the ground above politics.’
"But to be successful it must also have good domestic policies and a Bosnian leadership that supports rapid implementation and stable economic policies -- in other words, a government that puts results on the ground above politics."
The meeting was expected to recommend that elections should go ahead on September 14 so that no time would be lost in rebuilding an infrastructure shattered by 43 months of war. Carl Bildt, the international community's top civilian envoy, stressed that it was still early days. "I don't think anyone should judge after six months," he told a news conference. The Dayton deal which ended the Bosnian war was signed in Paris on December 14. "After 12 months we might be able to see the extent to which society is beginning to come together again."
The World Bank, which helped Bosnia draw up a $5.1 billion plan to restore basic services and begin repairing an estimated $50 billion war damage, used the ministerial conference of more than 40 nations to urge donors not to slacken their efforts. Hans Van Den Broek, the European Commissioner charged with Bosnian reconstruction, echoed the call.
"The donor community should do all it can to speed things up...However also the beneficiary governments have an essential contribution to make," he told the conference. "Without institution building, adequate domestic, political and economic policies, and without full compliance with the Dayton obligations, the civil implementation will prove unsustainable, not least by a gradual diminishing of the political and public support in donor countries."
Koch-Weser said overall the reconstruction programme "has gotten off to a reasonable start." But he said large-scale
visible results, which would cement peace more than anything else, were still not widespread He urged the international community, which has committed $1.8 billion to the reconstruction effort this year, to concentrate support in order to close "funding gaps" in critical programmes such as transport, education and housing.
The International Monetary Fund, of which Bosnia is now a member, issued a stark update on stalled progress in Bosnia's Muslim-Croat Federation and the Bosnian Serb entity Republika Srpska. "The slow process in establishing Federation institutions has been a major weakness of the peace process, undermining the ability of Bosnia-Herzegovina to implement sound economic policies and mobilise and absorb external assistance," it said.
"In addition, with elections so near, it is extremely important for the Republika Srpska to begin participating in preparations for the new central institutions of the state." One of the most important of those is a Bosnian central bank and establishment of a new, common currency, it said. But it said there were encouraging signs of economic recovery in the Federation, where industrial production and wages had risen sharply, and hyperinflation had eased in Republika Srpska.
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FLORENCE, Italy, June 14 (Reuters) -- International aid donors said on Friday that Bosnia's vast post-war reconstruction effort had got off to a reasonable start but the period after elections scheduled for September would be crucial to its success. "The reconstruction programme...cannot succeed without strong external support," Caio Koch-Weser, managing director of the World Bank, told a Bosnia peace review conference.
Bosnian Reconstruction at a Glance The World Bank
The World Bank The World Bank’s Homepage
Bosnian/Balkan Reconstruction U.S. Department of Commerce
Bosnian Reconstruction Guide Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
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