A/HRC/44/33 5. In the discussions participants highlighted the need for such holistic strategies to simultaneously activate measures aimed at tackling the root causes of female genital mutilation, protecting and assisting women and girls, and ensuring the accountability of perpetrators, while engaging all relevant State and non-State actors. Leadership, long-term vision and political commitment were emphasized as key components to effectively address female genital mutilation. It was also mentioned that as a human rights and development issue, interventions on female genital mutilation should be connected to national development and poverty plans and strategies, to avoid the issue becoming siloed and ensure that its socioeconomic dimensions, affecting especially the most marginalized communities, were adequately prioritized and budgeted. One expert stated that in Kenya, for instance, efforts had been made to ensure that strategic interventions on female genital mutilation be included in the country’s development plan. 6. Experts agreed that ensuring that policies and plans were fully costed and resourced was critical to pursuing a comprehensive approach to female genital mutilation. That should be coupled with adequate technical capacity of personnel, which would go beyond nominating focal points and imply investment to build capacities within different relevant ministries and institutions. It was also mentioned that countries that had made progress were those that had invested in the elimination of female genital mutilation, such as Burkina Faso and Kenya. 7. The meeting acknowledged the value of coordination mechanisms in advancing the elimination of the practice. Beyond ensuring coordination among all actors, those mechanisms were critical to building ownership and monitoring progress. Some experts, however, warned about challenges in achieving horizontal coordination between different ministries (for example, the Ministry of Women and the Ministry of Health), within ministries (for example, different persons dealing with women’s human rights and female genital mutilation), as well as vertical coordination at the central and local levels, especially in the context of devolution, as a disconnect with centralized ministries was common. 8. During the discussions it was recognized that social change needed to come from within the community. The transformation of social norms was only possible through sustained action at all levels, for instance at school and other formal education settings, in informal education, through work with communities and their leaders, including religious leaders, and through different means of communication. Examples were shared of the important role played by traditional communicators in West Africa in convincing members of the community of the harmful nature of female genital mutilation, as well as the use of social media to inform the population about the harmful consequences of the practice. Similarly, experts repeatedly referred to the need for concerted efforts to empower women and girls affected by the practice and ensure their meaningful participation in the development of interventions to address it. That was recognized as a critical element to ensure that the legitimate responses were effective and acceptable. Experts stressed that assumptions about the needs of women and girls should be avoided and that engaging in a dialogue with them was critical to understanding what an acceptable response meant for them. 9. It was also stressed that responses to female genital mutilation should be contextualized and adapted to the needs of different communities. For example, in migration contexts it was important to understand to what extent support for the practice was linked to identity and the need to belong to a certain group, while in other contexts social coercion might influence the choice of or consent to the practice for fear of rejection by the community. Some of the challenges to social change that were identified included difficulties in translating the human rights messaging around female genital mutilation in communities often deprived of their basic rights and the need to build better responses to arguments supporting the practice as a means to thrive and gain access to social capital resources. 10. The importance of comprehensive high-level initiatives at the global or regional levels to galvanize political commitment and action at the national level was also highlighted during the meeting. In that regard, the African Union initiative on eliminating female genital mutilation, “Saleema”, was mentioned as a promising initiative. Saleema was launched in the margins of the African Union summit of Heads of State and Government in 2019. It aimed to accelerate the elimination of female genital mutilation by transforming social norms and the cultural dimension of the practice; addressing cross- 3