Artis Pabriks, former Foreign Minister of Latvia and head of the OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission to Montenegro (centre), speaks to journalists at a postelection press conference with colleagues from parliamentary delegations, 30 March. (OSCE/Drew Hyslop) 14 the end of 2009, the Office was in the process of updating or developing publications on a wide variety of issues, including the participation of national minorities in electoral processes, legal frameworks for elections, new voting technologies, voter registration, campaign finance and guidelines on media monitoring. Observer Training Although OSCE participating States often take the leading role in the training of their seconded observers, ODIHR has contributed to these efforts on a number of different fronts. Under its training programme for election observers, ODIHR, together with the Belarusian authorities, organized a three-day training event in Minsk for short-term observers in December 2009. The aim of the training was to broaden the pool of observers from participating States eligible under the diversification fund: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Twenty-seven individuals participated; 15 of these were representatives of their respective governments, while 12 came from the NGO sector. The participants comprised 15 men and 12 women. Issues dealt with during the course of the training included an introduction to ODIHR’s election observation methodology, international standards for election observation, the daily life of an observer, and election- Elections day procedures and reporting mechanisms. Trainees also practiced their new observation skills in a mock polling station and in various interactive scenarios. ODIHR also continued to co-operate with a number of long-standing partners in the area of observer training, including the German Centre for International Peace Operations, the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Austrian Study Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution, the United Kingdom’s Electoral Reform International Services and the European Commission’s Network of Europeans for Electoral and Democracy Support. In 2009, ODIHR extended its co-operation to Denmark and Hungary, participating for the first time in regional training events for election observers organized by these countries. Support for OSCE Partners for Co-operation Following an invitation from Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister, ODIHR was tasked by the OSCE Permanent Council to support the conduct of the 20 August presidential and provincial council elections there. To implement this mandate, and following two exploratory visits made with representatives from the European Union, ODIHR deployed an Election Support Team (EST), composed of 20 experts to assist election stakeholders in their ongoing efforts to organize the elections. The ODIHR EST followed all areas of the electoral process, with a particular focus on domestic observation, capacity building ODIHR Annual Report 2009