”Thanks to unprecedented unity among political parties, the House of Peoples of the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) unanimously adopted today the decision to abolish VAT on donated food, giving the hungry hope for a better tomorrow. The recently adopted Law on Supplementing the Law on Value Added Tax will make it possible to donate food worth about 130 million BAM per year to those who cannot afford it, ” USAID announced yesterday.
The historic vote – one of the few unanimous decisions in the modern history of BiH – is the result of a major activist campaign led by the Mozaik Foundation with the support of the United States (U.S.) government. The campaign received enormous support from the public, media, institutions and politicians from the entire political scene in BiH. Under the slogan “No one hungry. No one alone.” during the past two years, thousands of people across BiH gathered to advocate for this important law. The initiative was run in partnership with the Hastor Foundation, the Pomozi.ba Association, the Peace Building Network, the Trag Foundation and Catalyst Balkans.
“The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) supported this campaign as part of our work to empower organizations and citizens of BiH so that they can become leaders of development activities in their communities. Because no one can better understand all the specific challenges they face or for them to find better solutions, than the citizens of BiHthemselves,” said the director of the USAID Mission in BiH, Courtney Chubb, adding: “I congratulate everyone involved in the campaign for this great success, but for the fact that they managed to convince political leaders that the spirit of cooperation and compromise between political parties must overcome radical political attitudes and stagnation if they want real progress and fulfillment of citizens’ needs.”
