On June 19 and 20, 2025, the Red Cross Kraljevo held a self-assessment of its organisational capacity according to the BOCA (Branch Organizational Capacity Assessment - BOCA) methodology developed by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The International Federation also financially supported this activity, and the event in Kraljevo is the seventh self-assessment of this type in the National Society of the Red Cross of Serbia following the start of the cycle last June. Kraljevo is also the largest community of organizations in which the BOKA self-assessment has been done so far, with all the specificities that characterize larger cities.

The initiative for the Kraljevo Red Cross to go through this process was given by the branch secretary Snežana Apostolović, who herself completed facilitator training last year and led some of the previous workshops. Crveni krst Kraljevo is the city organization of the Red Cross in one of the largest cities in Serbia in terms of administrative territory, and the development of its capacities is in the interest not only of vulnerable communities in the city and its surroundings, but also in the interest of the most important partners from the public domain and civil society. This was confirmed by the presence of representatives of the Centre for Social Welfare, the Centre for Local  Services of the City of Kraljevo and the deputy mayor at the workshop, and their active work on capacity assessment and proposals for improvement in priority areas.

During the two days of work, the existing capacities and strength of the Red Cross Kraljevo were recognized, but the potential for improving the capacities related to the greater participation of the local community in planning the activities of the Red Cross Kraljevo was identified, and this includes representatives of vulnerable communities as well as leaders of local communities, representatives of various public services and institutions and civil society. The participants also recognized work on infrastructure improvement, diversification of funding sources, and information management as priorities.

BOCA is a self-assessment toolkit developed by the International Federation to provide National Societies branches with standardized support in the process of identifying and assessing their strengths, limitations and challenges related to their organizational capacity. Intended and made available to all organizations of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement in the world, this tool has so far been used for self-assessments by more than five hundred organizations and as a result gave concrete plans for the improvement of various elements of the organization and its work. The Red Cross of Serbia, with the support of the Capacity Building Fund of the International Federation, after the neighboring National Societies in Hungary and North Macedonia, started using the BOCA tool and has so far conducted such self-assessments in six of its branches.