118. The ODIHR Director, as the person appointed by the participating States to lead the institution for a fixed term and to be responsible for its mandated activities, is effectively accountable to the Permanent Council for the delivery of the ODIHR election observation mandate and the consistency of budgetary planning with OSCE rules and regulations. The ODIHR thus operates in full transparency vis-à-vis participating States. It discusses its plans and activities early on with delegations in the context of the budget process. The ODIHR Director and ODIHR staff frequently brief delegations in Vienna in a variety of formats. The ODIHR is also open to visiting delegations from participating States, who frequently make use of this possibility to learn about the ODIHR’s work, meet its staff and exchange views and information on the entire range of human dimension activities. The ODIHR regularly consults with other international organizations engaged in election observation. 119. The ODIHR maintains a rolling election calendar on its website, as tasked in the 1994 Budapest Summit Decision.75 The rolling calendar informs ODIHR budgetary and programmatic planning in relation to its election activities. The ODIHR is now following electoral issues in a broader range of participating States, as evidenced by its request for up to eight election assessment missions in addition to up to ten full election observation missions in 2007. Recognizing the reality of finite resources, the ODIHR is constantly assessing where its observation activities can maximize the value added in a manner consistent with the imperative of responsible spending. 120. Given that ODIHR EOMs are intensive operations that are deployed and dismantled in a compressed time frame, in a variety of infrastructural and economic conditions, and in the context of an often unpredictable electoral calendar, the planning of budgetary expenditures will always have to accommodate unforeseeable factors; with regard to expenditures, the ODIHR is, as any other OSCE institution and field operation, fully accountable to the OSCE participating States. As a regular practice, ODIHR spending is subject to internal and external audits. 121. In order to allow the ODIHR to deliver its mandate in a responsible, accountable, and effective manner, OSCE participating States invest human and financial resources into the ODIHR’s election observation efforts. It is therefore incumbent upon the ODIHR Director to appoint professional and qualified individuals who are ready to assume their responsibilities in line with the ODIHR’s mandate and who are committed to upholding its widely reputed credibility. For the bulk of its human resources deployed for observation purposes, the ­ODIHR remains in the hands of participating States. 122. The head of an election observation mission is appointed by the ODIHR Director based on his/her delegated authorities stemming from the ODIHR’s election observation mandate. The head of an EOM is therefore directly accountable to the ODIHR Director and reports regularly to, and interacts frequently with, the ODIHR’s Elections Department. While the visibility of an election observation may draw significant public attention to this function, and the requirements for this position include political judgment, it is a technical, rather than political, role, which is formalized in the applicable OSCE rules and procedures for short-term assignments. His or her main tasks are to oversee the orderly deployment of observers; to maintain close contact with the host-country authorities, political parties and 75  40 The rolling calendar is updated regularly on the basis of information received from States. Common Responsibility: Commitments and Implementation