8. Creativity and Culture
Culture represents one of the main indicators of attitudes towards young people in BiH. As such, culture represents one of the main segments through which the treatment of young people can be monitored and represents, among others, one of the priorities of their development. However, in BiH, culture, and especially the contribution to improving the position and skills of young people through cultural, artistic and creative content, is marginalized. At the state level, there is no national strategy that would regulate this area, and laws adopted at lower levels of government usually do not directly treat the social category of youth. At the highest level, there is no established Ministry of Culture, but the competences are assigned to the BiH Ministry of Civil Affairs and as such are not broad. The decentralization of the political system, the fragmentation of institutions into entity, BD BiH, cantonal and municipal institutions greatly complicate the processes of making and adopting strategies and laws that would directly have youth development through culture among the primary goals. Youth laws at the level of FBiH, RS and BD BiH propagate as obligations of institutions to adopt and implement programs for youth in the field of culture, as well as to financially support cultural programs. The most common public invitations are addressed to cultural institutions, cultural and artistic societies, non-profit organizations, and most of them are not directly aimed at young people.
The greatest creative content is realized at lower levels of government such as cities and municipalities through local public institutions created by lower government institutions. In addition, the promotion of cultural content and individuals in most cases comes from international and non-governmental organizations.
This situation is not helped by the fact that young people are not very interested in participating in cultural events, and those who are, as individuals, do not have sufficient support to express and implement their own creative ideas.