DEMOCRATIZATION
Mobility in the OSCE Region,” organized by ODIHR
on 15 and 16 May in Vienna. The meeting included 30 visa policy experts from different parts of the
OSCE area, who explored and exchanged good
practices related to visa facilitation and the promotion of international travel.
Population Registration
Residency registration in many OSCE participating
States significantly affects the exercise of the right
to freedom of movement and choice of residence.
While in many participating States residency registration requires a simple notification to the relevant
authorities, in some OSCE participating States it requires the fulfilment of certain administrative legal
criteria. Complex and onerous registration criteria
can effectively deter certain categories of the population from taking up legal residence in the place of
their choice.
Based on its Guidelines on Population Registration
as a primary tool, ODIHR assists political decision
makers, practitioners and relevant authorities in reforming population-registration systems to protect
the right to freedom of movement and to facilitate
international travel.
Upon request of the State Registration Service of
Kyrgyzstan, ODIHR, in co-operation with the OSCE
Transnational Treat Department and the International Civil Aviation Organization, conducted a joint
assessment of the Kyrgyz legal and policy framework for the issuance of travel documents. The
Assessment Report, given to the Kyrgyz authorities
in September, contains detailed recommendations
for the development of a secure framework for the
issuance of travel documents that rely on verifiable
identity data from population-registration records.
Association for the Integrity of Democracy and
Elections, undertook comprehensive monitoring
of the 2014 parliamentary and presidential elections. During the presidential election, the Office
visited Tunisia and held meetings with several citizen observer groups, providing follow-up to a
2013 ODIHR-Democracy Reporting International workshop on report writing and to discuss future
activities to support civil society, including the review of legislation for local elections.
In follow-up to its engagement with Tunisia on
promoting political participation, ODIHR invited a
Tunisian representative to participate in the Office’s Youth Forum involving young leaders from the
OSCE region, organized on 12 and 13 June in Warsaw. In addition, a civil society representative from
Israel participated in ODIHR’s annual trial-monitoring meetings held from 26 to 28 November in
Tbilisi to share experiences on trial-monitoring programmes and activities.
With the aim of expanding and consolidating its
engagement with OSCE Mediterranean Partners,
ODIHR continued dialogue with all these countries throughout 2014 to highlight the benefits of its
tools and publications and to define further areas
of assistance, particularly in the areas of women’s
political participation, tolerance and non-discrimination and freedom of religion or belief. To this end,
the Office compiled a factsheet on its engagement
with OSCE Mediterranean Partners in English and
Arabic.
Support for OSCE Partners for Co-operation
ODIHR continued its co-operation with the OSCE
Mediterranean Partners for Co-operation, with the
aim of increasing understanding of the OSCE human dimension, by providing support in the fields of
elections, legislative assistance, strengthening parliamentary systems, women’s political participation,
gender equality and human rights.
In follow-up to ODIHR’s training on its election observation methodology in Tunisia, representatives
from several leading Tunisian citizen observer groups, including leaders from Mourakiboun,
Youth without Borders, I-Watch, and the Tunisian
ODIHR Annual Report 2014
39
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