Agnes Bodens
Senior Governance Advisor
OSCE Mission to Serbia
Operating period: since 2019
Previous positions:
- Expert in democratic governance, human rights, elections and parliamentary reform with over 15 years of professional experience in international organizations, academia and civil society organizations;
- Project manager at Democracy Reporting International, focusing on Egypt and Jordan, as well as EU assignments in the field of humanitarian aid, elections and democracy promotion
- Democratic Governance Officer at the OSCE ODIHR (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) in Warsaw, as well as various assignments as an election observer (Armenia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan)
- First secondment as Political Advisor to the EU Rule of Law Mission - EULEX Kosovo
- Advisor on Technology and Human Rights, Business and Human Rights and Arms Control at Amnesty International in Berlin
In my position as...
... Senior Governance Advisor for the OSCE Mission to Serbia, one of my tasks is to advise the democratic institutions in the country and support them in implementing OSCE standards and commitments.
In addition, I work on democratic control of the security sector in Serbia: currently increasingly on data protection law reform, public administration reform and decentralization. In order to strengthen environmental law, for example, we are working on legal education and training, but also on ensuring that civil society is more involved in political decision-making processes on environmental issues.
What I particularly like about my position is that I have an advisory role and can provide direct advice, for example with analyses, reports, briefings or presentations on democratic governance. At the same time, I am a manager: I lead a team of currently nine employees and therefore also oversee our program development and program management.
My favorite project is the Green Resource Center - an advisory body and information platform with which we want to promote skills in the field of environmental legislation among members of parliament.
The biggest challenge of my job is...
...that there have been three new elections in three and a half years. This has a direct impact on my area of work. The political polarization in the country requires a great deal of flexibility in project design, but also political sensitivity and intuition.
Why join the peacekeeping mission?
My main motivation for going on a mission is actually to pass on my knowledge. I find it enriching to work for democratization and democratic standards with a wide variety of people and institutions and - as in my current position - to support the government and institutions.
A special moment in my current secondment was ...
... a moment of appreciation and thanks for our work. After the kick-off event of our Environmental Law Clinic, a student came up to me and thanked me: without the OSCE and our activities, she would never have had the idea of specializing in environmental law. And yet it was so incredibly important as mother nature cannot defend herself before court. That made me happy - infecting other people for a good cause.