Alma Mirvic

Project Manager
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Bosnia & Herzegovina

Sep 8, 2020

Alma Mirvić is the Joint UN Regional Programme Coordinator for the Dialogue for the Future at UNDP’s office in Bosnia and Herzegovina. After receiving her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Sarajevo, Alma received her Master’s degree in State Management and Humanitarian Affairs from a joint program at the University of Sarajevo, University of Belgrade, and Sapienza University of Rome. Alma has held positions at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), at its Secretariat in Vienna and at its Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Alma collaborates with youth, civil society organizations, women, journalists, and editors to promote social cohesion through working with the regional joint program between UNDP, UNICEF, and UNESCO in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her career-long dedication to supporting social cohesion, particularly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, stems from past experiences during the war in the country, where there was anarchy and unsustainable reliance on natural resources after Yugoslavia dissolved, due to rising economic and political upheavals, as well as nationalism in the early 1990s.

Alma notes that strong social cohesion is particularly important in Bosnia and Herzegovina because the dynamic region has experienced violent conflict and past hardships, which presents an opportunity for dialogue between social and ethnic groups. She explains that social cohesion is a multifaceted phenomenon that focuses on promoting the common good, for the goal of bringing people together. Social cohesion also relates to protecting the environment and natural resource management, because the environment is a common good, resources are increasingly shared in a globalized society and countries’ actions increasingly impact each other, due to extreme weather events and climate change. Alma finds that “from a peacebuilding perspective, dialogue focusing on the environment and natural resources as a common good can serve as a non-political entry point to bridge ethnic and social divides.” To this point, Alma prepared dialogues with activists from civil society organizations (CSOs), youth councils, and other stakeholders to discuss priorities for building trust and social cohesion, which included the environment.  

At the Organization for Cooperation in Europe, Alma initiated an Earth Day celebration, where she raised staff awareness through campaigns, published resources on a website about environmentalism, and held an event for students about green cities. These experiences set the stage for Alma to work on promoting access to environmental justice and transparency. She worked with CSOs to establish a group at the forefront of providing free access for people who had their access to information about the environment denied or have been excluded from public consultation processes. Regarding environmental protection, Alma notes that “we are seeing a lack of commitment from governments to implement the Paris Climate Agreement and make systemic changes that would result in a stronger public and education systems for the environment, for the goal of becoming more responsible citizens and making better judgement calls when voting.” Relatedly, Alma set up the first e-course for civil servants on transparent environmental governance in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was recently converted to a massive open online course (or MOOC). Alma continues to work with environmental NGOs to write proposals and is passionate about “bringing people and ideas together.”

Alma also worked with legal consultants and a high-level judicial and prosecutorial council to gain access to statistics on legal cases related to environmental crimes. She presented her work at the First International Conference on Environmental Peacebuilding in 2019. Alma notes that conflict and crises exist where environmental welfare or shared natural resources are at stake. However, these challenges also create opportunities, such as surrounding shared water bodies and responsible management of international rivers. More specifically, Alma observes that processes organized by international river basin commissions can advance peacebuilding by bringing together conflicting sides to agree on and manage a shared resource. Alma notes that environmental peacebuilding has recently become more prominent and is one of the most important contemporary issues. She is determined to continue to engage with issues related to conflict, peacebuilding, the environment, and natural resource management.