1.3 Strengthening inclusive and accountable parliaments Across the OSCE, the legitimacy of representative democracy is facing challenges, fueled by growing public perception of parliaments as elitist, corrupt and lacking transparency. Parliaments are, likewise, male-dominated, with women making up only 28 per cent of legislators region-wide. Supporting democratic institutions is an integral part of ODIHR’s core mandate, though, and the Office worked throughout 2019 to strengthen inclusive and accountable parliaments, with special focus in Albania, Georgia and North Macedonia. ODIHR assisted the parliaments of Albania and North Macedonia in becoming more gendersensitive and enacting laws that are appropriate and useful for both women and men. This has resulted in two state-of-the-art Gender Action Plans developed for these legislatures. Building on similar efforts undertaken in Montenegro, ODIHR collaborated intensively with the OSCE Field Operations in Tirana and Skopje in 2019 to conduct consultations and assessments on the current level of gender sensitivity in parliamentary and legislative processes. ODIHR’s publication Making Laws Work for Women and Men: A Practical Guide to Gender-Sensitive Legislation was translated by the OSCE Field Operations into Albanian and Macedonian, allowing local stakeholders to benefit from ODIHR’s expertise. A number of workshops in the two countries strengthened the capacities of both parliaments in the areas of gender mainstreaming and 14 DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE OSCE enhanced regional co-operation, culminating in the adoption of specific gender action plans. These newly adopted strategic documents represent a new era in democratic governance and parliamentary processes, as two of the first such plans anywhere in the OSCE region. They both address issues of gender equality, inclusion and efficiency in parliaments’ representative, legislative and oversight roles and in leadership processes, as well as the roles of these parliaments as public employers. When working to strengthen the democratic role of parliaments, the promotion of codes of conduct within parliaments is an effective way to try to regain and increase public trust in their efficacy and transparency, as well as to prevent corruption. In order to advance parliamentary integrity standards and mechanisms, ODIHR assisted dedicated parliamentary committees in the parliaments of Georgia and North Macedonia in 2019 by offering technical expertise and facilitating knowledge-sharing in the development and enforcement of codes of conduct for members of parliament. ODIHR’s support facilitated the adoption of two new parliamentary codes of conduct in Georgia and North Macedonia, further promoting their subsequent implementation by drafting dedicated manuals and regulations based on international good practices. ODIHR’s work with parliaments on gender sensitivity, inclusion, and parliamentary integrity subsequently broadened in Albania, Georgia, and North Macedonia, and led to the initiation of a