A/HRC/27/20 service delivery; and strengthened accountability and transparency mechanisms. Discussions around the technical guidance contributed to a broadened understanding of rights-based approaches, by challenging the notion that human rights exist only in respect of discrete issues or population groups. 27. UNFPA has reported using the technical guidance to inform its advice on legal and policy development at both the national and regional levels. Regionally, UNFPA supports a programme entitled Intercultural Reproductive Health for Indigenous Women, in the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and Peru. This programme, which is aligned with the technical guidance, has brought about a better understanding of the human rights requirement of acceptable health services for indigenous women. Building on this project, a set of basic standards for intercultural maternal health services is being developed by the health ministries of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, the Andean Commission of Intercultural Health, and the South American Network of Indigenous Women. UNFPA in Malawi has reported that the technical guidance informed its analysis of several gender and youth sector policies, budgets and programmes, through its Gender Equality and Women Empowerment Programme, in order to ensure gender responsiveness and to ensure that such programmes meet human rights standards. 28. Civil society organizations have pointed out how the technical guidance can be used to monitor State policies and programmes relating to sexual and reproductive health. In Nigeria, the Centre for Reproductive Rights and the Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre have reported using the technical guidance in order to assess practices in Nigeria relating to pregnancy and childbirth and have presented recommendations to the Government on how to address human rights concerns in this regard. 29. In East Africa, the Open Society Institute has used the technical guidance to design tools to assess how maternal health services are being implemented and to review whether laws, policies and practices incorporate human rights-based approaches. These tools have been used to review the strategic plans of four countries — Kenya, South Sudan, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania — and the outcome of this assessment will be shared with relevant stakeholders in the region to assist them in advocating for more robust adoption of human rights-based approaches. Linked to this initiative, in February 2014, in Uganda, the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development, in collaboration with the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health, organized a regional meeting for civil society organizations from East Africa. The meeting focused on the value of human rights-based approaches to maternal health and the implementation of the technical guidance. The participants identified areas of work necessary for implementing the technical guidance at the community level, and each country identified a community-based organization that will follow up on such implementation. 30. Similarly, Ipas Brazil reported that the technical guidance had provided a useful human rights framework for an assessment mission, sponsored by a network of civil society organizations and social movements, on the status and the availability of emergency obstetric care services and women’s access to good-quality care at public health services in underprivileged municipalities of Rio de Janeiro. The findings had been presented at a public hearing of the Brazilian Senate. Civil society organizations are also exploring ways to use the technical guidance in efforts to monitor the Government’s implementation of, and to work with the Government in connection with, the decision of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in the case of Alyne da Silva Pimentel Teixeira, the first international human rights case where a maternal death was found to be a human rights violation. 9