On 28 November the Academy was honored by the visit of Ms. Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, Director of ODIHR, accompanied by Ambassador Greta Gunnarsdóottir, Senior Political Adviser/Head of Director's Office, Ambassador Dr. Pierre von Arx, Head of the OSCE Programme Office in Bishkek and Dr. Marcin Walecki, Head of ODIHR’s Democratization Department.
Ms. Gísladóttir presented the main activities of ODIHR, its mandate and challenges that it faces, to the Academy’s MA students. “Raison d'etat of OSCE is to secure peace and prosperity in our part of the world. We cannot enough highlight that our common peace and security should not be taken for granted and we must recognize that we see increasing challenges today”- said Ms. Gísladóttir. She also highlighted that the implementation of human dimension commitments remain a fundamental principle for ensuring the security in all parts of the OSCE area, though the rule of law often has been undermined, resulting in unfortunate consequences. Ms. Gísladóttir explained the importance of adoption of the Helsinki Final Act and its role in establishing the basis for international cooperation and agreeing on the highest standards of human rights, rule of law, and democracy, thus making them being recognized as core elements of comprehensive security. During the Q&A session, students had a chance to discuss the issues related to the peculiarities of the ODIHR election observation missions; the ways to ‘control’ the implementation of the recommendations developed by ODIHR, plus a number of other relevant topics.
Following the lecture the distinguished guests had a meeting with the management of the Academy and learned more about its future plans. Furthermore both sites discussed the cooperation opportunities between ODIHR and the OSCE Academy in the sphere of professional training, student internships as well as guest lectures.
Recently, the Academy library received a number of publications from ODIHR covering different topics of ODIHR’s works The Academy expresses its sincere gratitude for the donation and looks forward to a fruitful cooperation in coming years.