A/HRC/39/38 23. Mr. Mandela’s struggle against inequality and injustice had a special relevance and served as a guiding light for the Working Group on the Right to Development, which had been mandated by the Human Rights Council to monitor implementation of the Declaration on the Right to Development. The right to development was consistent with and informed by all the major international instruments adopted by consensus, including the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which provided a practical road map for realizing the right to development. 24. The Working Group must therefore rise above its current circular debates and develop the political will and spirit of compromise needed to realize the right to development. The celebration of the centenary of Mr. Mandela afforded an opportunity for the international community to take inspiration from the life and legacy of that great man, and to renew the pledge to work for political, economic and social justice for all. Although there would be innumerable obstacles and pitfalls in the realization of the right to development, the task could be achieved with the necessary commitment and cooperation of all Member States. 25. The Permanent Representative of South Africa to the United Nations Office and other international organizations at Geneva, Nozipho Joyce Mxakato-Diseko thanked the Members of the Human Rights Council, and in particular those from Africa, for having adopted the resolution mandating the organization of the high-level intersessional discussion celebrating the centenary of Nelson Mandela. 26. The event was taking place on the anniversary of the day when, 24 years previously, all the people of South Africa had voted for the first time, and had elected Mr. Mandela as the first President of a truly democratic South Africa, thereby marking the irrevocable transition of the country from apartheid to democracy. She praised civil society in particular, for its role in the anti-apartheid movement, in both Mr. Mandela’s release from prison and the ending of the apartheid regime. 27. The coincidence of the centenary of Nelson Mandela with the seventieth anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action should serve as a reminder of the values that were fundamental to the freedom and well-being of humanity, including the indivisibility of all rights, at a time when those values were being challenged. Mr. Mandela had stood for a world without racism, a world free of poverty, inequality and war. 28. Mr. Mandela had understood that civil and political rights on the one hand, and social, economic and cultural rights on the other, were interrelated and interdependent. The African Union’s 2063 Agenda and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development were also based on precisely that premise, and sought to give content to the right to development and to realize economic, social and cultural rights for all. 29. Mr. Mandela had cherished multilateralism as a platform for forging common solutions to global problems. Cooperation between the United Nations and the African Union in search of peace and prosperity for the people of Africa was therefore particularly welcome. Ms. Mxakato-Diseko believed that Mr. Mandela would have wished for a Human Rights Council in which members could set aside their geopolitical interests and rise with a singular sense of common purpose to prevent abuses of human rights and protect ordinary people everywhere. 30. The best way to honour Mr. Mandela would be through action: not only by being outraged by the rise of white supremacist ideology, racism, racial discrimination, antiSemitism, xenophobia and related intolerance, but by finding ways to transcend divisions and become a common bulwark against the erosion of the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, while implementing the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action. 31. South Africans would remain eternally grateful for Nelson Mandela as one of the founding fathers of democracy, together with other giants of the anti-apartheid movement, such as Albertina Sisulu. Mr. Mandela had contributed to one of the most modern, progressive constitutions establishing a democratic, non-racial, and non-sexist government 5