Overview  •  5 OSCE/ODIHR Director Michael Georg Link, speaking at the Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on OSCE Contribution to the Protection of National Minorities, in Vienna, 29 October 2015 OSCE/ Micky Amon-Kröll The 57 participating States that make up the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) continued to face challenges to the implementation of their human dimension commitments in 2015. Both Europe’s migration crisis and the continuing crisis in and around Ukraine shaped much of the work done by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) throughout the year. ODIHR is the largest of the OSCE’s autonomous institutions and covers almost all aspects of the human dimension – not only the protections of fundamental freedoms, but also work in the areas of elections, democratic governance and rule of law, promoting tolerance and non-discrimination, and improving the situation of Roma and Sinti. Today, ODIHR works within a broad mandate of commitments in these areas, allowing us to assist OSCE participating States whenever and wherever the rights of marginalized individuals are at stake. All participating States have recognized that their commitments to strengthen democracy and human rights safeguard against real threats to the peace and security of their societies. As such, this Annual Report looks back and highlights the Office’s activities in what was a very eventful and intense year of work supporting the implementation of commitments across the human dimension throughout the OSCE region. In ODIHR's work in response to the crisis in and around Ukraine, the Office launched a project to strengthen dialogue among civil society and with key governmental stakeholders in 2015. In its project activities, ODIHR emphasizes that peace and security are intrinsically linked with justice and co-operation, the advancement of democracy, and respect for and effective exercise of human rights. In 2015 alone, over 500 of Ukrainian stakeholders benefited from training events on human rights monitoring and hate crime, workshops on political party financing, meetings on women’s political participation and seminars on parliamentary ethics. The crisis in and around Ukraine continued to have a very significant human dimension impact, with reported violations of human rights law. In Crimea, the freedoms of assembly, association, movement, expression and access to information were all unduly restricted by the de facto authorities as pointed out in the Office’s joint report with the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) that was released in September. The Office also closely monitored and reported on the situation of Roma in Ukraine during the crisis.