The complicated administrative and legal frameworks that allow corruption and clientelism to flourish in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) are obstacles to the country’s energy sector moving towards net-zero by 2050.

Further, this study suggests that foreign actors are more a symptom than the cause of BiH’s slow energy transition. Their main motivation is not to exert political influence in BiH. Instead, they come to the country because of its abundance of natural resources, well-developed infrastructure, and production facilities, and to generate profits.

They do not invest to take responsibility for sustainable natural resource management or energy production, but merely to secure concessions and quickly cash out before jumping to a new deal without delivering on their contractual obligations. BiH citizens in the meantime remain ill-informed and largely powerless.