A/HRC/16/20
80.
OHCHR continued to work closely with humanitarian partners at all levels of
different humanitarian processes, notably as a standing invitee to the Inter-Agency Standing
Committee (IASC). OHCHR is an active member of the IASC Sub-Working Group on
Preparedness and contributes to the latter’s four-monthly “IASC Early-Warning EarlyAction” report. OHCHR monitoring, reporting and advocacy has been used to highlight
deteriorating human rights situations and emerging crises to enable preventive measures to
be taken by country teams, agencies and non United Nations partners. OHCHR is in this
way supporting partners through analysis and recommendations of strategic options to
mitigate emerging situations in for example Guinea, Kyrgyzstan and the Sudan.
81.
In addition, the Office supports the Humanitarian Reform Process led by the Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in particular in the context of the
Humanitarian Coordination Strengthening Project and the Cluster Approach, especially the
Protection Cluster. OHCHR is a core member of the Global Protection Cluster Working
Group and its various task forces including on natural disasters and learning. The Office
also sits in the Steering Committee of the Protection Standby Capacity Project (ProCap), an
inter-agency standby roster of protection officers that provides support to United Nations
agencies in their protection response to crises.
82.
Within the context of the cluster approach, the Office leads Protection Clusters in
Haiti, Nepal, the occupied Palestinian territory and the Pacific region, and plays a key
supporting role in other countries such as Kyrgyzstan and Uganda.
83.
In order to enhance the expertise and capacity of OHCHR to deploy staff on
humanitarian assignments, a number of staff participated in an OHCHR pilot training
course on human rights and humanitarian action.
III.
Conclusion
84.
The year 2011 marks a number of anniversaries, such as the twenty-fifth
anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to Development and the tenth anniversary
of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action. The year 2011 is also the
International Year for People of African Descent and marks the conclusion of the
Human Rights Council review and first cycle of UPR, setting the stage for the second
cycle focusing on implementation of previous recommendations. In 2011, I will be
submitting a compilation of recommendations for the strengthening of the treaty body
system.
85.
By definition, human rights work is a collective effort in a historic movement
and strategic priorities are long term. The year 2011 will include a number of
landmarks on which we will build to deepen our engagement in the six priority areas
of our work. They will remain our priorities for the biennium 2012-2013. We will do
so against the background of an untenable financial situation stemming from the gap
between increased requests for mandated activities, zero growth of the regular budget
and shrinking extrabudgetary resources.
17
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