International mobility as a development strategy: Bosnia and Herzegovina Country Report (English)

Emigration has been an important phenomenon in Bosnia and Herzegovina for many decades. Today, about 1.7 million Bosnians are currently living in another country, implying that one in three Bosnians can be considered migrants. This emigration rate is the largest of any of all countries in Europe and Central Asia, and is second globally, only after the Republic of Syria.1 The Bosnian diaspora tends to reside in former Yugoslavian countries (with more than 43 percent living in Serbia and Croatia), as well as high-income countries such as Germany and Austria. There is also a sizable diaspora in North America and Australia. In the last decade, new waves of migrants have been mostly going to Germany, Slovenia and Croatia.