A/HRC/37/77 Report of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action on its fifteenth session I. Introduction 1. The present report is submitted by the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 34/34. II. Organization of the session 2. The Working Group held its fifteenth session from 9 to 20 October 2017. Participants discussed and shared views on the state of racial discrimination worldwide and measures to enhance the effectiveness of the follow-up mechanisms to the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action and to ensure better synergies in the work of those mechanisms. The Working Group reviewed the progress achieved in the implementation of the programme of activities of the International Decade for People of African Descent and on the implementation of recommendations adopted at its previous session. The Working Group exchanges and discusses good practices on measures undertaken to promote societies that are more inclusive; training and awareness-raising for law enforcement officials and the judiciary; monitoring and investigation hate speech and hate crime; and protection of migrants and refugees against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. A. Attendance 3. The session was attended by representatives of States Members of the United Nations, observers from non-Member States and by intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). 4. Under items 5 and 6 of the programme of work, presentations were made by the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Mutuma Ruteere, independent eminent expert, Edna Santos Roland, and the Chair of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Anastasia Crickley. Under item 7, presentations were made by the Chair of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, Sabelo Gumedze, and by Ms. Santos Roland. Civil society representatives from Switzerland (Celeste Ugochukwu and Awa Balla Ndiaye), Germany (Elisabeth Kaneza) and the Netherlands (Barryl Biekman) also presented interventions under item 7. 5. Under item 9, presentations were made by the Permanent Representative of Singapore to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, Foo Kok Jwee; the Mayor of the City of Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America, William Bell; Margarita Maria Castilla Peon of the technical secretariat of the Mexico City Council to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination; the manager of the inclusion, protection and engagement unit of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Amjad Saleem; the Secretary-General of the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights, France, Magali Lafourcade; and a representative of the National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism, Argentina, Agustin Analian. 6. Under items 10 and 11, presentations were made by the Director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Centre, Washington D.C., and Associate Professor of Law, Justin Handsford; former member of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Patrick Thornberry; Christel Mercadé, legal/policy officer, fundamental rights and rule of law unit (European Commission); Denis Roth-Fichet, senior lawyer, European Commission against Racism and Intolerance; and Mireya Del Pino Pacheco, Director of Studies and 2