An NGO representative from Northern Ireland at the “1325: Women Negotiating Peace” international conference in Reykjavik, Iceland, 19 June. (OSCE/Linda Öhman) 27 2009, ODIHR began consultations with field operations and other key stakeholders on the design and construction of a future online repository. During 2009, ODIHR also played a more active role in reaching out to other international organizations working on strengthening parliaments in order to raise awareness of the OSCE’s unique contributions and key strengths in this field. Increasing Women’s Political Participation While significant advances have been made in advancing women’s political participation in recent decades, women are still under-represented in governance structures across the OSCE region. The OSCE-wide average of women’s representation in legislatures is currently at 21.5 per cent. On a case-by-case basis, however, the figure ranges from as low as 6 per cent to as high as 47 per cent. In any given participating State, women’s political participation usually depends both on broad social, economic and cultural factors, and on the electoral and political systems, particularly the rules governing political parties. As such, all of the following factors may have an influence on women’s political participation: rules on party membership and decision-making; the degree of decentralization of decision-making powers related to the nomination of candidates; rules on candidate registration and campaign financing; compulsory or voluntary quotas governing the nomination process; the ODIHR Annual Report 2009 design of electoral systems; ticket-balancing strategies; and other legal, administrative and policy measures for the promotion of gender balance in governance bodies and in the decision-making process. In view of this, one of ODIHR’s main priorities in this area in 2009 was the identification of the most pertinent issues and practices, in relation to political parties, that inhibit women’s participation, so that these can be effectively addressed by ODIHR through its provision of expertise and the development of guidelines on legislation pertaining to political parties. In June, ODIHR hosted a roundtable discussion in Warsaw on trends and challenges for women’s political participation in the OSCE region. The roundtable gathered experts from across the OSCE region, including members of parliament and local self-government councils, and representatives from the NGO sector, state institutions for promoting gender equality and international organizations. Discussions highlighted the variety of measures and practices adopted by participating States and political parties for promoting women’s political participation. Key recommendations concerned, for example, the need for political parties to undertake measures such as regular gender-equality assessments of party memberships and party procedures, as well as to collect data and use them proactively to strengthen equality provisions within party rules and procedures. Where gender-based quotas are used, participants underscored the importance of matching legislative quotas with effective enforcement mechanisms, adding that quotas should be used with time limits. This is particularly the case when they are set at lower levels, as Democratization