EU4 digital transformation in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Digital Services for a modern and developed Bosnia and Herzegovina

For more than a decade, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been moving towards a systemic reform of public administration.

This reform includes the continued development of e-Government as a key element of digital transformation, aimed at enabling simple and efficient access to public services.

Despite significant efforts, citizens and businesses still cannot fully access public administration services electronically.
A dominant challenge remains the fragmented, sectoral approach in which institutions do not view services from the perspective of citizens, companies, and their actual needs.

It is therefore necessary to further strengthen the strategic focus on interoperable systems within public administration, supported by electronic identification, electronic authentication, and electronic signatures. Digitalized and consolidated registers, together with credible data sources, will—combined with process and service optimization—contribute to greater satisfaction among citizens and the business community.

The establishment of e-Government, or the digitalization of public services, requires several key prerequisites:

Support from key political decision-makers and a clearly defined and visible institution leading the e-Government implementation process;

A legal framework that enhances public trust and grants government institutions the mandate to conduct their operations and administrative procedures electronically;

A public administration that is ready and willing to change its way of working, exchange information, and place the needs of citizens and businesses at the center of its activities;

The project’s response to this situation

The project strengthens the capacities of local institutions and contributes to the achievement of goals defined in the Reform Agenda for BiH, the EU Digital Decade Policy Programme 2030, the Economic and Investment Plan for the Western Balkans, and the Digital Agenda for the Western Balkans, as well as other relevant strategies and policy documents such as the Strategic Framework for Public Administration Reform in BiH 2018–2027 with its Revised Action Plan, the implementation of the Interoperability Framework in BiH, the Draft e-Government Development Strategy in BiH 2024–2028, and planning documents currently being developed by other levels of government.

Interoperable systems based on the EU Interoperability Framework;
Public administration services that are optimised and supported by digitalised processes;
Public administration registers that are digitalised and interconnected through a data bus and web services;
Services for citizens that are available through a one-stop-shop portal;

Project activities

The first group of activities aims to support the upgrade of existing public administration infrastructure and contribute to establishing a unified telecommunications network for BiH public administration institutions, as well as further developing the system for digital citizen identification (Digital ID Wallet). In addition, the focus will be on raising awareness among civil servants about e-Government and the provision of e-services.

The second group of activities is related aims to enhance Business Support Organizations (BSOs) through advisory services and capacity development, enabling them to serve as effective providers of services related to access to Digital Europe funding. Additionally, digital innovation hubs shall be capacitated to gain access to Digital Europe funding for their projects aiming to assist the digital transformation of the public and private sectors.

Expected Results

The activities will lead to improved preconditions for digital transformation within governmental institutions and provision of public e-services.
In cooperation with Council of Ministers BiH, the digital infrastructure in58 governmental institutions will be improved allowing for further development of data exchange, interoperability, and e-service creation.
The active support of IDDEEA efforts will produce the technical prototype of the BiH Digital ID Wallet and identify its most prospective use cases. The Digital ID Wallet will enable citizens to safely request, store, and share important digital documents about themselves and electronically sign or seal documents. The necessary precondition is compatible legislation that should be enacted by BiH policymakers.
The project will actively work on awareness raising of civil servants on various aspects of digital transformation aiming to broadly support that process in many aspects and phases, including effective provision of public e-services.