Western Balkans Regional Hub

Western Balkans

The Western Balkans Regional Hub is working with local governments to identify their relevant needs and priorities, and provide them with the support, resources and access needed to become leaders in prevention, ensuring their perspectives inform relevant national, regional and global policy and programme conversations.

Identifying City Needs & Priorities in the Western Balkans

The Western Balkans Regional Hub held its inaugural in-person workshop in Sarajevo in February 2023. Among the priorities identified by participating mayors, local and national representatives, civil society and multilateral stakeholders was a need for greater local government-led efforts to address inter-communal tensions, unresolved historical grievances and lack of trust in government institutions, which they identified as fueling extremist and hate-motivated violence and threatening the social fabric. Local officials also said they lacked a clear mandate to engage in prevention work (and a clear understanding of the variety of ways they can do so), despite this and other comparative advantages cities through their proximity to and engagement with local communities.

Impact

Hear from Cities in the Western Balkans

Cities are often on the margins of discussions about security or prevention, but first on the line of response when threats are realised. In 2015, our municipality was the target of groups intent to undermine the coexistence and stability of our municipality and country as a whole. With Strong Cities, we managed to bridge the gap between capacities and needs on the ground, and to engage more actively in preventing violent extremism, hatred and polarisation in our community.

Maksim Dimitrievski—Mayor of Kumanovo, North Macedonia

About the Western Balkans Regional Hub

The Western Balkans Regional Hub builds on and is shaped in part by the Network’s previous engagement in the region, including inter alia: supporting multi-stakeholder prevention networks; facilitating city exchanges for peer-learning; mapping community resilience to extremism; and empowering youth-led community initiatives by building bridges between local authorities and young people.

The Regional Hub, staffed by a team of local experts based in North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and with financial support from the US Department of State, is now driving forward an ambitious workplan to address local needs and priorities, and to empower local authorities across the region to become leaders in prevention.

Western balkans REgional Hub

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Miloš Bogičević

Head

Biography

Emir Hasanović

Programme Lead

Biography

Besim Dogani

Network Officer

Biography

DISCOVER THE NETWORK

Strong Cities in the Western Balkans

A global network of cities in different national and local contexts ensures that wherever a city is located, there will be other cities facing similar challenges and with similar capacities and needs.

Western Balkans

Identifying City Needs & Priorities in the Western Balkans

Hear from Cities in the Western Balkans

About the Western Balkans Regional Hub