0.1% Allocated for Youth from Total Federal Budget in 2014

As a part of Strengthening Governmental Institutions Project (SGIP) in BiH, a workshop was organised on the topic of the Report on FBiH Budget Implementation for 2014. The workshop was organised on Thursday, 2 July 2015 at the Science and Arts Academy of BiH. The workshop was attended by parliamentarians of the Parliament of FBiH, representatives of the Academy, representatives of several departmental ministres of FBiH and representatives of the Association of Municipalities and Cities of the FBiH.

The analysis of the Report on FBiH Budget Implementation for 2014 was presented with detailed structure of the FBiH Budget with types of rewenue and expenses, the volume of these assets and a graphical presentation. The differences between planned and implemented Budget were emphasized in instances where the implemented Budget assets were lower than the planned ones.

Representative of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Water Mangement and Forestry presented the adopted, medium-turn Strategy for Developing FBiH Agricultural Sector for 2015-2019. In 2014, the stated Ministry failed to allocate youth funds, and in accordance with the new Strategy, youth and women will be given advantage in awarding agricultural incentives. 

Representative of the Institute for Youth Development KULT presented the amount of assets allocated for youth from the FBiH Budget in 2014. The presentation was based on the information available on websites of departmental ministries, since the Report on FBiH Budget Implementation for 2014 does not contain separate information on any category in society, including youth. Certainly, for youth, youth organisations and organisations focusing on youth issues, it would be useful that if youth were acknowledged as a separate category in the Report on FBiH Budget Implemetation and if youth assets were reviewed.

In accordance with the information available on websites of the departmental ministries in FBiH, nine ministries allocated 2,298,700 BAM for youth in 2014, which is around 0.1% of the total FBiH Budget. The remaining seven ministries failed to allocate funds for youth and youth organisations. The allocated funds refer to scholarships for different youth categories, training youth apprentices, youth tourism, youth entrepreneurship, scholarships for training in old crafts, etc. The federal ministries who planned to allocate or allocated youth assets were: Federal Ministry of Culture and Sports, Federal Ministry of Education and Science, Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, Federal Ministry of Health, Federal Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Federal Ministry of Development, Entrepreneursfip and Crafts, Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs, Federal Ministry of Justice and Federal Ministry of Displaced Persons and Refugees.

The assets that are planned for youth by the FBiH Budget are ambiguous, so it is impossible to account for all the planned and implemented youth assets from the Budget and agendas of the ministries. Both FBiH documents provide general information on financial transfers for individual ministries, that are directed to several categories of the society, but these categories and the planned assets are not clearly described. It is only by analysing the results o public calls for awarding transfers, can it be concluded that, e.g. a certain amount of assets were allocated for youth entrepreneurs, and not just for the total population of entrepreneurs in FBiH. 

The following recommendations can be made from the aforementioned:

1. Harmonise the agendas of departmental ministries, along with the documents of the programme budget and documents on FBiH Budget implementation with the priorities listed in the strategic documents of FBiH. The FBiH Youth Strategy 2016 – 2020 that is being developed, will provide concrete directives to federal ministries regarding the priorities related to youth policy in every department;
   
2. Increase transparency of calls for participation in distributing youth transfers, and promote public calls on social networks utilized by youth;
   
3. Eliminate inefficient youth programmes from the FBiH Budget and replace them with programmes that will be of greater use for more youth and enable a more effective and efficient youth participation;
   
4. Create new or improve the existing strategic documents of FBiH in accordance with the results of efficiency audit that the planned budget would follow;
   
5. Invest the budget assets planned for youth employment in perspective sectors, in which youth can find employmet easily (e.g. in the IT sector).
   

The workshop on FBiH Budget Implementation for 2014 was organised as a part of the Strengthening Governmental Institutions Project in BiH (SGIP), in partnership with the Institute and financed by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).