Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, Director of ODIHR (right), and Günther Kräuter, Secretary General of the International Ombudsman Institute and Ombudsman at the Austrian Ombudsman Board, signing a co-operation agreement, Warsaw, 19 September 2017. (OSCE/Maria Kuchma) anti-Semitism and intolerance against Muslims and Christians. To mark the International Day of Tolerance, ODIHR published an expanded edition of its annual hate crime data, featuring data reported by 44 participating States and supplemented with additional data from 125 civil society organizations, the UNHCR and OSCE field operations. The discrepancies between the data provided by participating States and the data reported by civil society organizations indicate that there are still barriers to reporting and recording hate crime. ODIHR continues to work with participating States to improve how hate crimes are recorded and prosecuted, and to ensure that victims feel confident reporting them. ODIHR worked closely in the year with other international organizations to maximize its impact. Early in 2017, ODIHR partnered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to release a handbook on how states can deal with statelessness – a security issue facing hundreds of thousands of people across the OSCE region. ODIHR also signed a co-operation agreement with the International Ombudsman Institute, which will create a sustainable platform for co-operation and facilitate further opportunities for joint activities. ODIHR continued to work closely with other key partners in the year, including the Council of Europe, Commonwealth of Independent States and European Parliament. This is only a brief overview of some of ODIHR’s activities – the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. The Office’s work deals with myriad issues relating to the human dimension of security – from elections, to hate crime, to human rights. I invite you to read through this document and discover more about the vital activities our office is carrying out across the OSCE region. ODIHR is mandated to assist OSCE participating States to implement their commitments in the human dimension. Regardless of how serious current and future challenges to democracy may be, participating States can always rely on the professionalism, dedication and integrity of ODIHR to work together with them in “building, consolidating and strengthening democracy as the only system of government of our nations.” (Paris 1990) Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir ODIHR Director