A/HRC/37/74 I. Introduction 1. The Human Rights Council, in its resolution 32/27, reaffirmed the Social Forum as a unique space for interactive dialogue between the United Nations human rights machinery and various stakeholders, including civil society and grass-roots organizations.1 2. The 2017 Social Forum was held in Geneva from 2 to 4 October. It focused on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of the HIV epidemic and other communicable diseases and epidemics. The President of the Council appointed the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations Office at Geneva, Maria Nazareth Farani Azevêdo, and the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Belarus to the United Nations Office at Geneva, Yury Ambrazevich, as the Co-Chair-Rapporteurs of the Forum. 3. The programme of work was prepared under the guidance of the Co-ChairRapporteurs, with inputs from relevant stakeholders, including United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The present report contains a summary of the proceedings, conclusions and recommendations of the Forum. The list of participants is contained in the annex to the present report. II. Opening of the Social Forum2 4. The meeting was opened by the Co-Chair-Rapporteurs of the Social Forum. Ms. Farani Azevêdo emphasized that it was essential to strengthen health systems and promote universal health coverage in order to provide long-term sustainable responses to future epidemics. To be effective, those responses must include not only technical and financial support, but also be firmly anchored in a human rights perspective. Realizing the right to health entailed ensuring equal access to medicines and health-care services and addressing social, economic and environmental determinants of health. Poverty, lack of sanitation, air pollution, unsafe water and inappropriate waste disposal and management perpetuated the transmission of vector-borne and infectious diseases and enabled the outbreak of epidemics. Discrimination resulting from harmful social practices or restrictive legal norms were major obstacles to the right to health. Those challenges required a multisectoral approach. The interdependence between the human rights and the development frameworks had been reaffirmed by the 2030 Agenda. The 2017 programme of the Social Forum was aimed at building bridges between the Sustainable Development Goals and human rights obligations and norms. 5. Mr. Ambrazevich stated that the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of the AIDS epidemic and other communicable diseases and epidemics were directly related to the complex challenges of finding the most effective ways to combat those diseases. Each State needed to carry out careful analyses of systems and mechanisms for ensuring a balance of interests of all stakeholders in that issue, particularly in the light of the emergence of new challenges. To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals relating to health, global progress should be made in economic, social and cultural rights. That also required national dialogue between all interested parties, as well as effective and action-oriented governance, adequate policy space, international cooperation, assistance mechanisms, and national and international partnerships. 6. The Vice-President of the Human Rights Council, Mouayed Saleh, drew attention to the resolutions adopted by the Council on issues related to physical and mental health, and to the fact that health was an important element of the 2030 Agenda. Recent outbreaks of Zika, cholera and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) had illustrated that a 1 2 For further details on the Social Forum, see www.ohchr.org/EN/issues/poverty/sforum/pages/sforumindex.aspx. The full texts of the statements and presentations submitted to the Secretariat are available at www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Poverty/SForum/Pages/SForum2017Statements.aspx. 3