ANNUAL REPORT 2003 Democratization Freedom of Movement tries are considering following the Ukrainian model. Should sharing of positive experiences. The Unit will continue its this happen, the stays of thousands of people travelling to work on assisting legal developments in Belarus, Ukraine, the region would be greatly simplified. and Armenia. In Belarus in particular, the programme will focus on the development of new legislation on free choice of place of residence and population registration. In Ukraine Promoting humane border management and Armenia, relevant government officials will be trained In 2003, the ODIHR completed its involvement in a programme through which it lent assistance to reform of the border services in the countries of the South Caucasus and Central Asia. The purpose of this programme was to introduce the relevant border services to best practices of humane border management. Such practices are designed to ensure that borders remain secure, while individuals leaving or entering a country also receive appropriate treatment in accordance with human rights standards. Activities focused on the development of bilateral co-operation and the exchange of information between Polish border officials and their colleagues in the South Caucasus and Central Asia through training visits, roundtable discussions, bilateral contacts at management level, expertise on developing training curriculum for domestic training centres, and training personnel. on implementation of the newly adopted legislation. In addition, the Unit is planning to organize a regional conference for the countries of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia on the experience gained in the region during the process of civil-registration reform in order to share information with other states in those regions. Upon the request of a number of OSCE participating States, a Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on internal displacement is planned for November 2004 in Vienna. The Unit will play a major role in organizing this meeting, recommendations from which will be used as guidelines for the Unit’s future work on the issue. The Unit will continue its work on facilitating interstate dialogue on migration issues, including training programmes, workshops, and seminars on development of migration poli- In particular, the ODIHR completed a programme in 2003 for 15 officers from the Azerbaijani Border Service, who received nearly a year of training at the Polish Border Guard Academy. The Office also conducted a regional conference on the reform of the border services in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, where this training programme for border guards was one of the central topics. The ODIHR plans to continue to monitor the impact of this training in co-operation with other international actors in Azerbaijan. cies, models for effective interagency co-operation in promoting tolerance and eliminating discrimination against migrants, and legislative prerequisites for gathering information on migration. Finally, following the decision by the OSCE Ministerial Council in Maastricht, as well as recommendations from the 2003 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting, the ODIHR is planning to reinforce its activities in the field of labour migration and protection of migrant workers. A number of international consultations, seminars, and workshops provid- Future priorities ing a framework for interstate dialogue and different forms of co-operation to address labour-migration issues will be or- In the coming years, the Migration Unit will continue its ac- ganized under the ODIHR umbrella in the countries of East- tivities aimed at protecting various categories of migrants ern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. The main goal and facilitating regional and subregional co-operation and of these activities will be to facilitate the development of exchange of experience among OSCE participating States on practical co-operative mechanisms between countries of migration issues. destination and countries of origin on the regulation of labour migration and the protection of the rights of migrant In the field of propiska reform, the next two years should see workers, while at the same time securing state interests and consolidation of the progress achieved thus far and further enabling the effective use of foreign labour. 41