About the USAID/INSPIRE Activity

USAID/INSPIRE Human Rights Activity

Basic information
Total value: $8,77 million
Project duration: August 2020 - August 2025
Implementing partner: Institute for Youth Development KULT

Through the INSPIRE Activity, USAID works to empower BiH citizens and government institutions to improve overall human rights protections, services, and employment prospects for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s most vulnerable persons.

The INSPIRE Human Rights Activity builds on the achievements of USAID’s Marginalized Populations Support Activity (2015-2020). That program helped establish seven service centers to support disabled people and their families, assisted rural women in opening businesses, and built the capacity of the Sarajevo Open Center to work with municipal and civic leaders to host the first PRIDE parade in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in 2019. The Activity also supported advocacy efforts aimed at providing systemic solutions to problems faced by marginalized groups, such as employment and independent lives for youth without parental care who had to leave the centers where they spent their childhoods, or providing basic healthcare for children from dysfunctional families. Yet our work in promoting human rights protections, social development and inclusion is not done. The challenges faced by marginalized groups in BiH are not easy to deal with. That is why providing continued support to those in need is crucial – whether they are persons with disabilities and their families, the Roma, unemployed women, victims of human trafficking, members of the LGBTQI community, or others.

USAID SUPPORT

Launched in August 2020, USAID’s INSPIRE Human Rights Activity responds to the ongoing socio-political and economic challenges faced by marginalized groups of society in BiH. USAID/INSPIRE supports civil society organizations (CSOs) and individuals that advocate for the rights, empowerment, and dignity of underrepresented populations, while engaging citizens in these civic/political issues themselves. A main goal of the program is that all levels of BiH government recognize and include CSOs and citizens as necessary, respectable partners in policy development. Technical assistance is also used to build the capacity of these CSOs and BiH institutions to better serve marginalized citizens.

IMPLEMENTATION

The Activity’s main components for protecting and promoting the human rights, social development, and inclusion of underrepresented groups are:

• Grants to local organizations that combat human trafficking by strengthening anti-human trafficking measures and ensuring implementation.
• Grants for service centers working with children with special needs, intended to support their sustainability-building efforts.
• Grants to support the process of deinstitutionalization of people with disabilities.
• Assistance for up to 20 municipal governments to create a sustainable scheme that fosters formal employment opportunities for vulnerable women and members of other disadvantaged groups.
• Grants to local organizations that promote the rights and dignity of those with disabilities and members of the LGBTQI and Roma communities.
• Targeted training to increase the capacity of supported NGOs, associations and CSOs in financial sustainability, advocacy, and outreach.
• Technical assistance to build the capacity of USAID partners, institutions, and government leaders to better protect the rights of underrepresented citizens in a sustainable and manageable fashion.

EXPECTED RESULTS

By the end of the Activity’s life, USAID expects to achieve the following:

• Increased support from the private sector and local government for Service Centers for Families of Children with Disabilities so they are sustainable at the local level.
• Community-based model of deinstitutionalization will be refined and expanded across BiH.
• More public-private partnerships to provide formal employment opportunities to women and minority groups, such as Roma.
• Stronger local organizations that advocate on issues related to the LGBTQI and other underrepresented groups, including victims of human trafficking.