memoranda of understanding111 or upon mutual agreement through a consultation process with host-country delegations or capitals. Where applicable, the ODIHR works with OSCE field operations, but it also carries out activities in countries not hosting OSCE field presences. Following the continuous expansion of the ODIHR’s activities, the Office reached an average of 130 individual projects per year with a total annual average value of over €4 million between 1999 and 2002. Such quick expansion into this type of activity involved certain risks, especially in relation to the organizational capacity to manage projects efficiently and transparently. 186. The ODIHR also uses extra-budgetary contributions to further promote compliance with OSCE commitments through monitoring and assessments and subsequently provides participating States with corresponding advice and technical assistance, analysis and specialized expertise, material for training, curricula and handbooks, as well as targeted capacity-building, assessment, and training methodology. This approach enables the ODIHR to combine constructive assessment with concrete help on how to remedy shortfalls. In addition to the ODIHR’s budgetary resources, extra-budgetary contributions allow the Office to assist in a flexible, effective, and timely manner. 187. This consideration and the need for more consistent, longer-term engagement and continuity led the ODIHR to consolidate its project-related work into more comprehensive, and therefore more effective, programmes. Learning from its experience in the 1990s, the ­ODIHR recognized that many projects have a more lasting effect when embedded in longerterm programmes and can be better evaluated, adjusted, and followed up as part of a more comprehensive thematic approach. This development also emanated from recommendations received from States, donor and recipient countries alike, as well as from OSCE field operations. 188. Since 2004, the ODIHR has focused on targeted institution-building and capacitybuilding programmes. It has broadened its planning into a multi-year outlook, while maintaining the possibility for shorter-term projects when a rapid response to emerging needs is required. This programmatic shift provides greater continuity in assistance, as well as the chance to build upon existing work in a broader framework and to link related political and developmental challenges. It is also better adapted to ensuring sustainability of the results of its engagement. 189. In managing its technical assistance, the ODIHR has also taken account of ongoing OSCE-wide developments and reforms, in particular programme-related aspects of the Integrated Resource Management Agenda, implementation of the OSCE-wide programme/ project planning cycle, and Doc.In. In 2006, the ODIHR introduced the Performance-Based Budget Process within the OSCE as a pilot institution and contributed its broad experience of work in the human dimension to that initiative. The ODIHR has paid close attention to integrating all these innovations into its work, further refining them where greater benefit was to be obtained. For example, the ODIHR is now applying its own tailor-made evaluation methodology to programmes financed by extra-budgetary contributions. 111  Memoranda of understanding on specific programmes or on general co-operation have been signed with Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Romania, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Common Responsibility: Commitments and Implementation 65