Building institutional, economic and social capacities through discourse: the role of NGOs in the context of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia

As part of ongoing research, this paper attempts to explain how a nongovernmental organization (NGO) engages in activities of social and institutional entrepreneurship in developing capabilities at different levels: social, human, economic and institutional. In this study, tourism provides the empirical context in the cross-border regional tourism development of the eastern part of the Republika Srpska (RS), BiH (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and western Serbia. The region, known as the Drina Valley Tourism Region (DVTR), encompasses eight municipalities, four from each side of the Drina River which forms the border between the two countries. The DVTR, situated in the Drina River Valley, comprises fragile ecosystems and equally fragile open economies facing unique sustainable development problems and opportunities. The economy is strongly dependent upon agriculture and a few tourism activities with good prospects for tourism rejuvenation and development. A sizeable influx of concessionary finance, official grants and net private transfers from abroad sustain development programmes in some parts of the region, particularly in Srebrenica and Bratunac (RS–BiH). One of the main problems facing all the municipalities is negative population growth and an increasing number of younger people permanently leaving the region. The area provides a specific political and historical context due to its dynamic history associated with perpetuated ethnical and religious struggles amongst the communities along the river since the Ottoman invasion in the 15th century. The dissolution of the former Yugoslavia following the civil war in the early 1990s revived the historical tensions that were controlled in the former Yugoslavia. Bridges over the Drina River have never lasted long. In such a context like BiH