A/HRC/43/31 74. OHCHR conducts and implements technical cooperation projects at the national, regional and global levels in close cooperation with other United Nations agencies and programmes, such as UNICEF, UNESCO, the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the United Nations Staff College and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 75. OHCHR collaborates also with partners outside the United Nations, such as the African Union, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights, the Latin American Institute for Crime Prevention and the Treatment of Offenders, the Andean Commission of Jurists, and others. As an example of such partnerships, OHCHR and OSCE have a joint office in Abkhazia (Georgia) for the purpose of, inter alia, implementing a technical cooperation project. 76. The Field Operations and Technical Cooperation Division is one of the main arms of OHCHR in providing technical assistance, with branches in nearly all continents. In 2018, OHCHR had 12 regional offices covering the five continents. The offices play a crucial role in efforts to promote and protect human rights, also working closely alongside regional organizations, such as the African Union, OAS and the European Union. 77. In 2018, OHCHR also had 14 country offices, whose main tasks included monitoring, public reporting, providing technical assistance and building national capacities to address human rights issues. 78. OHCHR has also enhanced its operational support for United Nations country teams that have integrated human rights into their common country analysis and the United Development Assistance Framework. It cooperates closely with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in its joint Human Rights Strengthening Programme, supporting also the implementation of the UNDP policy, “Integrating human rights with sustainable human development”, the primary purposes of which are to test guidelines and methodologies and to identify best practices and learning opportunities in the development of national capacities for the promotion and protection of human rights and in the application of a human rights-based approach to development programming. 79. Another joint initiative is the Assisting Communities Together project, launched in 1998, which focuses on a “bottom-up” approach by emphasizing the role that civil society can play in the promotion and protection of human rights. The long-term objectives of the project are to empower people at the local level to be proactive in ensuring greater respect for human rights and to strengthen partnerships between the United Nations and local human rights constituencies. 80. Examples of technical assistance provided to States and regional organizations undertaken by OHCHR include the cases in 2013 of Mexico, to give constitutional status to all the State’s obligations guaranteed by the conventions that it had ratified, and Myanmar, to help it to set up a national human rights institution in line with the Paris principles. 81. OHCHR has supported the States members of the European Union in applying a human rights-based approach to combating trafficking in persons at border controls, in close cooperation with many specialized agencies of the United Nations. Thanks to its technical assistance, the Russian Federation was able to implement a Master’s degree programme in human rights, and it assisted the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Thailand to prepare their national reports for the universal periodic review and the follow-up on its recommendations. OHCHR assisted Haiti and Morocco in setting up their interministerial human rights committees, which oversee the preparation of reports submitted to various United Nations bodies. Paraguay benefited from OHCHR support when launching a portal for monitoring human rights recommendations made by United Nations human rights mechanisms and OAS. 82. OHCHR has also assisted developing States in establishing and strengthening judicial accountability mechanisms. In 2006, the Government of Togo requested OHCHR to support the creation of a truth, justice and reconciliation commission as a tool of real transitional justice. in coordination with the United Nations country team, UNDP and international 12