Think Tank Populari is a non profit, public policy organization based in Sarajevo, working throughout BiH.
Read here what we are focused on at this moment and about our other activities. Also read some of our reports.
Even in the works of the ancient Roman writers, the area of present day Bosnia and Herzegovina was mentioned in the context of production and processing of milk, in which cheese was one of the main products. However, if judging by the current strategic documents on all government levels in BiH, this tradition, alongside any potential benefits it might have in today’s economy, seems to be forgotten. While dairy as an industry is considered to be one of the country`s most important agricultural sectors with good growth potential, cheese as a final product is given little attention in these documents. Autochthonous cheese production has been preserved in rural Bosnia, but the core of BiH’s dairy industry today is milk.
Even though Croatia was not plagued by the numerous internal difficulties that BiH continues to face, its path to Europe proved neither quick nor simple, as the timeline below shows. Looking at the Croatian case, it becomes clear that accession is a complex, time-consuming process that only becomes more difficult as the acquis continues to grow. Bosnia is merely at the beginning of this process. Recognising the opportunity to learn from Croatian experience, Populari has launched the Good Neighbours project, made possible with support from the UK government.
Using concrete stories from Croatia, Good Neighbours project will examine useful segments of Croatia’s negotiation and accession processes, with a specific focus on the Food Safety and Environment acquis chapters. As Croatian experience showed, the implementation of EU standards has a direct impact on citizens’ lives in both of these sectors. Both important and very immediate for Bosnia, the two mentioned areas set a greater picture of what needs to be done in Bosnia, but also, where we stand at the moment.
For more information please visit www.good-neighbours.org
Heraldry is a worldwide thing, although in some societies it matters more than in others. Official symbols represent nations, people, governments and many other groups, even if not everyone always affiliates with them. This is a subject of political dynamics and it changes over time. To explore this issue in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and very locally at the municipal level, Populari gathered coats of arms from all the Bosnian municipalities. This country-wide perspective provided us with the opportunity to visually analyze the messages they transmit, and see if certain trends emerged. How relevant are the municipal coats of arms in BiH? What do they symbolize, and whom do they represent? Do they have any other purpose besides hanging in the offices, being stamped on documents, or decorating local souvenirs?
Forming a government is no easy task in complex, multilingual and multicultural countries with a variety of perspectives, as seen in the past several months in both Belgium and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). As Populari researchers traveled to Brussels to participate in a round table event discussing BiH's EU accession path, they could not help finding the circumstances rather amusing: Doesn’t it seem a bit hypocritical to discuss the necessity of forming the Bosnian government in the capital of a country that has been twice as long as Bosnia without government? Despite the lack of new governments, neither country collapsed in recent months. In fact, little has changed for the daily lives of ordinary citizens, as trash still gets picked up, schools remain open, and pensions are still paid in both countries. However, the mechanisms that ensure such matters are handled very differently in the two countries.
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This report calls for rethinking of what BiH pursues. It asks to rethink the adequacy of policies set for BiH and the true costs of mismanaged projects. Through the case study of the transport sector, the report discusses the value of the EU instruments extended to the country, the level of BiH’s ownership over these processes, and, particularly important, the relevance of those policies at this stage of the BiH’s road to Europe.
The report was developed by 49-FortyNine, Centre for Economic Solutions in cooperation with the Think tank Populari.
download the full report
Once again in 2011 we will award the three best pieces which tackle some of the negative stereotypes about BiH often seen in the media!
Think Tank Populari started the DEconstruction project in order to use fact-based arguments to break negative stereotypes of BIH. DEconstruction also serves as a platform for anyone who wants to respond to some of the most common biased media claims about Bosnia.
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In 2010, the debate on international power in Bosnia and Herzegovina is still ongoing. No clear policies that would make the issue less complicated are in place. To investigate what this means outside of BiH and among 27 members of the European Union, with the support of Open Society Institute Think Tank Fund, and CEPS, under the supervision of Michael Emerson, Populari’s researcher Goran Tirak, undertook a challenge by investigating the effectiveness of the OHR when it comes to Bosnian aim towards full integration into the European Union.
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