A/HRC/41/25
ministries, political parties and civil society groups. The plans cover civil and political
rights and economic, social and cultural rights, and often specifically target equal access
and enjoyment of human rights by particular groups who may be in vulnerable situations.
23.
Since the idea of national human rights action plans was launched in the Vienna
Declaration and Programme of Action in 1993, numerous States have established national
or sectorial plans. OHCHR has developed a comprehensive guidance manual on national
human rights action plans and has provided technical assistance to Member States on their
establishment.
24.
Plans for the implementation of recommendations thematically cluster all
recommendations from international human rights mechanisms, prioritize them, assign
implementation responsibilities to ministries and State entities and indicate a time frame for
implementation, as well as resources and indicators.
25.
The increased coordination capacity provided by national mechanisms for reporting
and follow-up is crucial for strengthening the capacities of Member States to develop
national or sectoral human rights action plans or plans for the implementation of
recommendations, and link them to national efforts for the achievement of the Sustainable
Development Goals. In support, OHCHR aims to strengthen national capacities in that
regard. For example, in 2018, OHCHR provided support to Haiti, Nauru, the Republic of
Moldova, Samoa and Uganda on the establishment or strengthening of national
mechanisms for reporting and follow-up and, in addition, provided technical assistance on
the elaboration or revision of national human rights action plans (see A/HRC/40/3).
C.
Integrating human rights into national policies for the achievement of
the Sustainable Development Goals
26.
OHCHR has developed a number of tools to support efforts by Member States to
enhance implementation of international human rights recommendations and integrate them
into their national policies for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. They
include supporting the establishment of information management systems to facilitate the
clustering and prioritization of recommendations and the development of human rights
indicators.
27.
The Universal Human Rights Index, a web-based database designed to facilitate
access to human rights recommendations issued by the treaty bodies, the special procedures
and the universal periodic review, has proven to be a useful tool to produce overviews of
recommendations by country, linking them to each of the 17 Sustainable Development
Goals. As part of an agreement between OHCHR and the Danish Institute for Human
Rights, in 2018 a database was launched linking more than 50,000 recommendations made
during the first and second cycles of the universal periodic review to specific Sustainable
Development Goals, with a view to expanding it to include the recommendations from all
human rights mechanisms (A/HRC/38/28, para. 17).
28.
In a number of countries, OHCHR is also piloting, at their request, a specific tool,
the national recommendations tracking database, which aims to facilitate the recording,
tracking and reporting on the implementation of recommendations at country level, drawing
road maps and assigning responsibilities, with clear budgets, benchmarks of success and
timelines, for their implementation. The database allows Member States to import the
recommendations from United Nations human rights mechanisms addressed to them
directly from the Universal Human Rights Index, cluster and prioritize them, develop an
implementation plan, including indicators and responsible institutions, and report on
implementation. Member States can search and retrieve all this information through several
parameters, including thematic areas, affected persons or groups and Sustainable
Development Goals and targets.
29.
Strong synergies can be built by clustering recommendations emanating from the
human rights mechanisms and linking them to the Sustainable Development Goals. In
Paraguay, the online database for following up on the recommendations of the international
human rights mechanisms was developed with OHCHR support and was expanded in 2017
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