On 4-6 December, the PDU facilitated the participation of two MoIA representatives/ spokespersons from the Department of Public Relations at the “Regional Conference for Press and Public Information (PPI) Officers of the Security Sector”, organized by the OSCE Mission in Kosovo in partnership with UNMIK in Pristina. The purpose of the Conference was to bring together, for the first time, the police press and public information officers from Pristina, Belgrade, Podgorica, Skopje and Tirana to share experience, identify potential areas of co-operation and exchange best practices in tackling PPI issues. Election Security In order to assist the MoIA in professionally fulfilling its role during elections with a focus on its activities on Election Day (E-Day), the PDU printed 8,000 copies of an Election Security Booklet that was used by Police Officers on E-Day. The PDU, together with the MoIA, distributed the booklets to all Police Officers engaged in providing security on E-Day. The PDU’s co-located police advisers also closely observed the training on Election Security for Police Officers delivered by MoIA trainers country-wide. On E-Day, the PDU, with the support of other Units of the Mission, monitored the security situation at the identified hotspots in the host country, which provided Mission Management with first-hand security-related information. PDU staff members joined the MoIA’s “Operational Centre” on E-Day to ensure direct and immediate information sharing, and verification and co-ordination of actions with MoIA officials, regarding discovered incidents or violations of election security. Police-Public Partnership Further to tangible progress in the police reform process, the Mission designed an Exit Strategy from Community Policing in 2013. The strategy aimed at ensuring a smooth handover of the PDU’s former community policing initiatives to the national authorities through tailored capacity building. The hand-over process was expected to be completed by the end of 2015. However, observations by the Mission’s Police Affairs Advisors brought to light that the initial hand-over phase of the police-public partnership programme faced a number of challenges, despite the progress achieved in this area. Therefore, further efforts were needed to ensure the programmes’ sustainability and effective functioning in the multi-ethnic environment of the host country. The PDU continued to support activities to strengthen the capacity of the Local Prevention Councils (LPCs) and Citizen’s Advisory Groups (CAGs), which had been established over the past years on a country-wide basis with the assistance of the Mission’s former Police Development Department. At the end of 2012, Debar was the only remaining municipality in the country without an LPC. Building on the work implemented in 2012, the PDU further assisted the local authorities in 2013 to strengthen the role of the CAGs and LPCs, which proved to be vital in communicating messages regarding local issues, such as tensions after several high-profile inter-ethnic incidents and tackling the problem of local juvenile violence. The PDU’s field-deployed Police Affairs (PA) Teams in 2013 − each consisting of a Police Adviser and a Language Assistant − continued to monitor the functioning of the CAGs and LPCs and provided advice when required. Due to the turn-over in the LPCs composition after the 2013 elections, the PDU initiated a workshop for relevant municipal and police authorities on best practices of using CAGs and LPCs for the purpose of effectively addressing the problems of communities in general and their security related concerns in particular. The PDU’s Police Advisers, co-located throughout the host country’s SIAs, continued to utilize their close contacts and professional working relationships in the field to forge and enhance further links with different local communities. The Ploce Advisers, together with the Monitoring Unit of the Mission, provided assistance and advice in a number of incidents of 103