A/HRC/34/24 36. Ms. Joosten stated that, in order to enhance the coherence and efficiency of human rights reporting and follow-up by Belgium, the responsible department decided to develop a consolidated table of all the human rights recommendations received by thematic cluster. This tool does not only group together by theme all the recommendations made by the universal periodic review and treaty bodies, but also includes all recommendations made by special procedure mandate holders following their visits and the recommendations made by Council of Europe mechanisms. Most importantly, the coordinators or the main government bodies responsible for the implementation of the respective recommendations are identified. 37. The advantage of this comprehensive approach is two-fold in that it allows the body responsible to: (a) combine the considerable number of recommendations and bring it to a more manageable number that is easier to digest; and (b) identify recurring issues raised by different bodies, which in turn enables it to prioritize follow-up. The table is perceived as a living work document, which entails the need for regular updating. 38. Ms. Joosten mentioned that, in September 2016, a decision was taken, for the first time, to bring the issue of follow-up to human rights recommendations to the political level, by putting it on the agenda of the Federal Council of Ministers for early 2017. 39. To conclude, she stated that Belgium had taken important steps to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of its national human rights follow-up process, but that the journey had just started and it was clearly a work in progress. D. Intervention by Devendre Gopaul, Deputy Permanent Representative, Prime Minister’s Office, Mauritius 40. Mr. Gopaul began by stating that several United Nations human rights treaty bodies had recommended that Mauritius develop a set of human rights indicators. He added that one of the recommendations in the National Human Rights Action Plan (2012-2020) dealt with the development of human rights indicators for assessing progress in its implementation. 41. In 2013, at the request of the Prime Minister’s Office, the University of Mauritius developed a database of human rights indicators. However, it was deemed too complex for non-experts in the field of human rights, it was not user-friendly and it did not clearly indicate the list of indicators and data that could be used as an evidence-based approach for each periodic report, among other issues. 42. In the light of this situation, the Government of Mauritius solicited the assistance of OHCHR to develop human rights indicators that could be used to: (a) provide empirical evidence of progress in the implementation of human rights recommendations; (b) identify trends in progress made; and (c) compare its human rights implementation with that of other similar countries and with other continents, in general. In September 2016, OHCHR organized a training workshop on human rights indicators in Mauritius, which was attended by human rights focal points, periodic report writers and statisticians. The workshop enabled participants to familiarize themselves with the OHCHR publication, Human Rights Indicators: A Guide to Measurement and Implementation.4 The importance of indicators as emerging requirements of treaty bodies and as an evidence-based approach to United Nations periodic reporting — the so-called “data revolution” — was stressed. Participants learned how to identify the different types of indicators, for example, structural indicators (legislation), process indicators (measures taken to reach a certain objective) and outcome 4 8 OHCHR, Human Rights Indicators: A Guide to Measurement and Implementation (2012), available at http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/Human_rights_indicators_en.pdf.

Select target paragraph3

Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents