A/HRC/7/34 page 3 Introduction 1. The Human Rights Council, in its resolution 6/9, requested the Secretary-General and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) “to submit to the Council, prior to its seventh session, a joint progress report, from within the regular budget of the United Nations, on public information activities in the field of human rights, including activities being undertaken throughout the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by the United Nations system, internationally and at the national level, and, particularly, by the field presences of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights”. 2. In its resolution 6/9, the Council also encourages the Department of Public Information of the Secretariat and OHCHR “to continue to support, within their respective responsibilities and in consultation with States, the development of national capacities for human rights education and public information, inter alia by involving national human rights institutions and non-governmental organizations, and to launch, within the framework of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights sixtieth anniversary activities, specific initiatives for widening public information in the field of human rights”. The Secretary-General submitted a comprehensive biannual report (A/HRC/4/106) to the fourth session of the Human Rights Council, which addressed the issue of public information activities in the field of human rights, including the World Public Information Campaign on Human Rights until the end of 2006. This report complements it with activities and information in 2007. 3. The coordination of the United Nations education and public information programmes in the field of human rights was specifically mentioned in General Assembly resolution 48/141 of 20 December 1993, as part of the mandate of the post of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 4. On 10 December 2007, a year-long United Nations system-wide human rights advocacy campaign, an initiative of the Secretary-General and coordinated by OHCHR, was launched to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR 60). 5. The High Commissioner for Human Rights has repeatedly stressed the importance she attaches to the implementation of activities for increasing awareness of human rights among the general public. To meet this objective she stressed in her Strategic Management Plan 2006-2007 the need to enhance the Office’s communication capacity. Since then, a Communications Section composed of three units - the Media Unit, the Editorial and Publications Unit, and the Web and Audiovisual Unit - has been established and manages communications and public information strategies and activities of OHCHR. I. PUBLIC INFORMATION ACTIVITIES OF THE OFFICE OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS A. Publications programme 6. The goal of the publications programme of OHCHR is to raise awareness of human rights and fundamental freedoms and to publicize ways of promoting and protecting them worldwide. Another aim is to encourage debate on human rights issues under discussion in United Nations bodies.