A/HRC/44/19 (c) Will implementation of the proposal contribute to strengthening the national human rights protection system and changes in laws and in practice? (d) Will implementation of the proposal contribute to the better alignment of human rights and development efforts with the Sustainable Development Goal targets and indicators? Establishment or strengthening of national mechanisms for implementation, reporting and follow-up 18. States have increasingly adopted comprehensive, more efficient and sustainable approaches to reporting, engagement and follow-up to recommendations through the establishment of a new type of governmental structure known as a national mechanism for implementation, reporting and follow-up. This is a permanent national governmental mechanism or structure mandated to coordinate and prepare reports to, and engage with, international and regional human rights mechanisms and to coordinate and track national follow-up to and implementation of recommendations. Such national mechanisms work in coordination with ministries and specialized State bodies, such as the national statistics office, parliament and the judiciary, and in consultation with the national human rights institution(s) and civil society organizations. During 2019, the Voluntary Fund has been supporting multiples initiatives proposed by Member States in this area. 19. In 2019, the Human Rights Council adopted resolution 42/30 on promoting international cooperation to support national mechanisms for implementation, reporting and follow-up and requested OHCHR to organize regional consultations to exchange experiences and good practices relating to the establishment and development of such mechanisms and their impact on the effective implementation of human rights obligations and commitments. The funding of projects for the establishment or strengthening of a national mechanism for implementation, reporting and follow-up by the Voluntary Fund serves to create sustainable capacity for reporting on and implementation of universal periodic review recommendations, in line with resolution 42/30. 20. During a regional consultation held in Panama in October 2019 for Spanishspeaking countries supported by the Voluntary Fund, OHCHR worked together with States to strengthen the dialogue and coordination between national mechanisms for implementation, reporting and follow-up and the government structures in charge of implementing the 2030 Agenda and monitoring progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Creation of a recommendations implementation plan 21. Many States develop recommendations implementation plans, sometimes supported by database software hosted at a ministry that administers the software. Such plans, and any databases to support them, ideally cluster all recommendations from the international human rights mechanisms thematically, prioritize them, assign implementation responsibilities and establish a period for implementation, as well as resources and indicators. During the general debate on the universal periodic review at the forty-second session of the Human Rights Council in September 2019, States shared good practices and concrete steps for the implementation of recommendations from the reviews. Many States that took the floor reported on the development of national action plans for the implementation of the recommendations. They also provided information on the submission of voluntary midterm reports, reflecting progress achieved at the implementation stage, and expressed their readiness to share their positive experiences, encouraging other States to follow that practice. 22. The national recommendations tracking database developed by OHCHR and available in Arabic, English, French and Spanish and, shortly, in Russian, will greatly assist the work of the national mechanisms for implementation, reporting and follow-up, and in the elaboration of recommendations implementation plans. Clustered recommendations can easily be cross-referenced to the Sustainable Development Goals to build synergies and linkages between the different follow-up and reporting activities related to the Goals and human rights. They can also serve as useful tools for United Nations country teams, where applicable, to inform their common country assessment and the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework and interactions with government counterparts. 5