News and press releases

The OSCE Mission supported a workshop strengthening the capacity of fifty legal professionals from both banks of the Dniester/Nistru River to provide legal assistance to the population on documentation-related issues. The event took place on 30 November in Chisinau. Varying practices of the documentation process on both banks prevent the population from effectively exercising their rights. Issues related to civil status and documentation are a part of the discussions between Chisinau and Tiraspol within the framework of the settlement process.

Over 70 university students and teaching staff attended lectures on the role of women in the security and development process from 3 to 5 December 2018 in Ashgabat. The event was organized by OSCE Centre in Ashgabat. Swanee Hunt, the Eleanor Roosevelt Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in the United States, delivered the lectures, focusing on women’s active participation in conflict prevention and resolution, peace building and policy making.

The Entrepreneurship Support Centre (ESC) in Osh, Kyrgyzstan’s second largest city, marked its first anniversary on 4 December 2018, in a celebration organized by the Centre together with the OSCE Programme Office in Bishkek. The mission of the ESC is to provide information and consulting support to entrepreneurs, as well as to form, prepare and promote high-quality business initiatives for the development of entrepreneurship in the Osh region.

A two-day training course for public transport employees to improve their understanding of persons with disabilities who use public transport was organized in Dushanbe on 29 and 30 November 2018. Marking the celebration of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the event was organized by the League of women with disabilities “Ishtirok” with the support of the OSCE Programme Office in Dushanbe.

Throughout 2018, the OSCE Programme Office in Bishkek helped conduct a study of political and institutional frameworks for financing environmental protection causes in the province of Jalal-Abad. The results of the study, entitled “Financing Environment Protection with focus on Biodiversity and Climate Change Adaptation in Jalal-Abad Province: Public and Private Expenditure Review”, will be published with the support of the OSCE Programme Office in Bishkek by the end of this year and then transferred to the Ministry of Finances of the Kyrgyz Republic.

MINSK, 4 December 2018 – The Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG), Ambassador Martin Sajdik, made the following statement to the press after the meeting of the TCG and its Working Groups in Minsk on 4 December 2018:

Compared with the previous 24 hours, the SMM recorded more ceasefire violations in both Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The Mission followed up on reports of a man injured due to gunfire in Betmanove, Donetsk region. The SMM recorded ceasefire violations assessed as inside the Stanytsia Luhanska and Zolote disengagement areas. Its access remained restricted in all three disengagement areas.* The SMM observed fresh damage to one of the wooden ramps on the broken section of the Stanytsia Luhanska bridge. It observed weapons in violation of the withdrawal lines on both sides of the contact line. The Mission facilitated and monitored adherence to the ceasefire to enable repairs to the Petrivske water pumping station near Artema as well as an assessment of a water pipeline near Popasna. It continued to facilitate the operation of the Donetsk Filtration Station.