A/HRC/15/44 I. Introduction 1. Annual meetings of special rapporteurs/representatives, independent experts and chairs of working groups of the special procedures of the Commission on Human Rights and the Human Rights Council have been held since 1994. The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights on 25 June 1993 underlined the importance of preserving and strengthening the system of special procedures and specified that the procedures and mechanisms should be enabled to harmonize and rationalize their work through periodic meetings (A/CONF.157/24 (part I), para. 95). 2. During the meeting, mandate holders held exchanges of views with the United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, the President of the Human Rights Council and members of the Bureau, the former President of the Council, and with States. Participants met with participants in the eleventh Inter-Committee Meeting of treaty bodies, representatives of United Nations entities, field presences of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and with representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and national human rights institutions (NHRIs). II. Organization of work 3. The meeting was opened by Mr. Santiago Corcuera, Chair of the sixteenth annual meeting and Chair of the Coordination Committee (Committee) of special procedures. 4. On 28 June 2010, Ms. Najat Maalla M’jid, Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, was elected Chair of the seventeenth annual meeting and of the Committee, and Mr. Shamsul Bari, independent expert on the situation of human rights in Somalia, was elected Rapporteur of the meeting and a member of the Committee. On 1 July, Ms. Catarina de Albuquerque, independent expert on the issue of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation; Mr. Githu Muigai, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance; Ms. Mirjana Najcevska, Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent; and Ms. Raquel Rolnik, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context, were endorsed as the four other members of the Committee selected by the Chair. 5. III. On 28 June 2010, the meeting adopted the agenda and the programme of work. Activities of the Coordination Committee 6. The former Chair of the Coordination Committee briefed participants on the activities of the Committee in 2009/2010 and made suggestions on how to strengthen the special procedures system. He thanked all mandate holders for their valuable contributions, as well as for their encouragement and confidence throughout the year. 7. The former Chair recalled that there had been numerous developments in relation to the mandate, role and functions of the Committee since 2005, and that the Committee had taken a more proactive role to facilitate the interaction between special procedures, States and the Council, and to increase collaboration and information-sharing between mandates to reinforce the system of special procedures. The Manual of Operations of the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council had been revised; a more systematic approach to situations, especially in the context of crises, where collective responses by special procedures could be justified and desirable had been developed, and an increasing number 4