What we do

The Mission helps strengthen co-operation among national institutions, authorities, and civil society, building the capacities of all those involved to ensure a victim-centred and human rights-based approach in protecting victims of this serious crime. It also works towards strengthening regional co-operation and empowering grass-root organizations in combating child trafficking in the region.

The Mission monitors the security situation in the country by conducting regular field trips and meetings with municipal and religious leaders, community representatives, members of non-governmental organizations, political authorities and law enforcement officials. Thus it fulfills an important early warning function. It also assists with confidence building activities between the communities and provides mediation in case of tensions.

The Mission assists the country with the reform of its electoral system. It helps election officials and others involved in electoral matters to apply international standards and good practices, and assists electoral institutions with remedying potential shortcomings and ambiguities in electoral legislation, procedures and the voters’ list.

To strengthen democratic governance and to foster closer and more constructive inter-ethnic relations, the Mission works with local and central government institutions on initiatives that support democratic governance principles and the values of the Ohrid Framework Agreement. It assists key government bodies and state authorities to respond more effectively to challenges such as implementing the principles of equitable representation, transparency and accountability in the public administration, the use of languages or the transferring of competences and resources to local level.

In response to the flood of migrants that have recently passed through the country, the Mission uses a victim-centred and human rights-based approach, and works with authorities to enhance the capacity of regular and border police to deal with refugees and migrants.

The Mission helps the host country develop a community-oriented police service in line with democratic principles and international human rights standards. This includes the furthering of police reform and assistance with the professionalization of the police. It offers customized training courses for police officials on issues such as the fight against organized crime and terrorism, preventive policing and how to deal with inter-ethnic problems. The Mission also supports the country’s police training centre and helps strengthen the relationship between the police and the media.

Key priorities in this area are to strengthen the independence of the judiciary and to assist the legal reform process. Promoting the participation of all ethnic communities in public life is an important tool to secure equal access of all citizens to justice, which in turn helps strengthen democratic progress in the country. The Mission organizes train-the-trainers courses and prepares educational materials, monitors the legislative process and offers technical comments to the judiciary, provides expertise to law makers to support the legislative drafting process and also makes legal resource material available. It monitors trials of high profile cases that might have an impact on the security situation or inter-ethnic relations in the country, and helps establish an objective and merit-based system to evaluate the work of public prosecutors.