CONNECTO 2024 – It Is Necessary to Stop the Brain Drain, Encourage Return, and Foster Collaboration Between Entrepreneurs and Authorities

The CONNECTO 2024 conference has proven to be a crucial venue for exchanging ideas and strategies to halt the trend of emigration and instead leverage the potential of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian diaspora for the country’s economic development. One of the key lectures was delivered by Davor Krezić, owner of Alfa Therm, who highlighted alarming statistics indicating that around 600,000 people have emigrated from Bosnia and Herzegovina over the past decade. The departure of these individuals has cost society 131 billion marks, which includes investment in upbringing, education, and other aspects until their twenties.

“Each individual leaving the country represents a loss to society of about 4 million KM over their working lifetime,” Krezić stated. He added that these were new pieces of information specifically prepared for the CONNECTO conference. If this trend is not reversed, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s economic future could be at risk.

Given the significant economic cost of emigration, Krezić emphasized the need for creating better living and working conditions as a key factor in retaining the population. Among the proposed solutions were establishing special departments within local municipalities to connect with the diaspora, as well as developing programs to encourage return and investment from the diaspora.

The open dialogue between local authorities and entrepreneurs on the path toward transforming the economy and society into a structured, digitalized, and productive environment, along with support from the EU for small and medium-sized enterprises in our country, are top themes of this year’s CONNECTO 2024.

A significant part of today’s program was the panel discussion on “The Economy of the Herzegovina Region” featuring Marija Buhač, President of the Government of HNŽ, Predrag Čović, President of the Government of ZHŽ, and Ivan Vukadin, President of the Government of HBŽ. The discussion focused on improving dialogue between the government and entrepreneurs, highlighting the importance of synergy between the public and private sectors in creating a more favorable business environment in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Government of Herzegovina-Neretva Canton has set as its strategic goal the creation of an optimal and improved framework for economic development. “We view tourism as an extremely important sector because we are aware that our canton has exceptional potential that we need to further utilize for overall development,” said Marija Buhač, President of the Government of Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, during the CONNECTO 2024 panel discussion.

In addition to tourism, small and medium-sized enterprises in HNŽ are key to the economy, and the government, through the Ministry of Economy, implements various incentive programs for their development. Buhač particularly emphasized the Government of HNŽ’s support for youth self-employment programs through government incentive programs that facilitate the opening of businesses or small enterprises.

Predrag Čović, President of the Government of West Herzegovina Canton, highlighted that the canton is open to positive initiatives. “We work together with digitalization of public administration and improvement of the education system as a priority. We are fortunate to have opened the Office for European Integration in 2019, which worked on strategic documents. We also created a Development Council of the canton consisting of the Prime Minister, vice-presidents, and mayors, and opened up to projects proposed by our entrepreneurs. The ZHŽ Government aims to introduce positive changes step by step, year by year, and create better conditions for everyone,” said Predrag Čović, President of the Government of West Herzegovina Canton.

“We are preparing and training administrative employees to meet the challenges of the times, which means writing EU projects in a way that they are approved and thus receive support. Sometimes it is much easier to get the money than to execute the projects effectively,” said Ivan Vukadin, President of the Government of Central Bosnia Canton. The Central Bosnia Canton Development and Integration Coordination Service successfully operates and implements projects and offers support to those interested in writing and realizing projects. We are working to ensure that every ministry and service has trained personnel for project writing, which is our goal, so we can participate more in projects and their implementation,” said Prime Minister Vukadin in response to a question about cross-border cooperation projects.

CONNECTO 2024 emphasizes connecting people, implementing innovations, ideas, and investments, providing a platform for sharing experiences and creating new business opportunities. This year, the conference hosted prominent speakers and experts from the fields of innovation, technology, industry, education, and science, reaffirming its role as one of the highest-quality and most influential events in the region.

Along with INTERA Technology Park, the organizers of CONNECTO 2024 are GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) through the BOOST Project, co-financed by the European Union and the German Government through the EU4DigitalSME project, as well as the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN).