OVERVIEW    7 project on Promoting Security for Religious Communities and Others in the Regions of Ukraine, which was successfully completed in February; and a hate crime training cycle for civil society groups, police officers and representatives of local authorities, which also concluded in February. The Office also provided training and support in efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s political party system and the monitoring of political party financing; on human rights-compliant policing of assemblies and policing in Roma and Sinti communities, and to increase the effectiveness of police responses to sexual and gender-based violence. ODIHR also provided expertise on processes for the issuance of travel and identification documents and the establishment of a state-wide population register. True to ODIHR’s beginnings in 1991, election observation continued to be an area of focus, as the Office observed elections in 15 participating States, involving some 3,500 observers from 52 OSCE participating States. Over the year, the Office published some 60 election-related reports. In promoting co-ordination and collaboration with international partners, ODIHR continued to join with delegations from the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and the Congress for Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe in observation and the delivery of post-election statements. As part of assisting participating States, on request, in the follow up on ODIHR reports, the Office published the Handbook on the Follow-up of Electoral Recommendations. The handbook was just one of 12 new resources published in 2016 to support the implementation of human dimension commitments, including the Compendium of Good Practices for Advancing Women’s Political Participation in the OSCE Region, the Human Rights Handbook on Policing Assemblies, Effective and Human Rights-Compliant Policing in Roma and Sinti Communities: OSCE/ODIHR Training for Law Enforcement Officers, and a factsheet on Hate Crime against People with Disabilities. The space here allows for only an overview of ODIHR’s activities and accomplishments in 2016, so I invite you to explore the entire report to gain a full idea of the breadth of the Office’s activities. In that sense, this report is an important part of the process of taking stock of where the Office stands as it enters its second quarter century. Regarding that future, as mentioned above, there continue to be challenges in the implementation of human dimension commitments and, in some areas, these challenges appear to be growing. For the OSCE’s comprehensive approach to security to be effective, these challenges have to be addressed. Twenty-five years on, true to its mandate as the main OSCE institution in the human dimension of security, ODIHR remains deeply committed to that work. Michael Georg Link ODIHR Director ODIHR Director Link (r) speaks to EU Permanent Representatives to the OSCE and senior ODIHR staff as Jan Haukaas, Special Adviser/ ODIHR Director's Representative in Vienna, listens at the meeting in Warsaw, 30 May 2016. (OSCE/Murat Gungor)