A/HRC/45/44/Add.1 the Provinces of Esmeraldas, Guayas and Manabí, with a combined total of 64.2 per cent. Pichincha Province follows, in the Sierra region, with 11.2 per cent. Of this population, 7.1 per cent reside in urban areas and 29 per cent in rural areas. The province with the largest urban Afro-Ecuadorian population is Guayas (319,531 Afro-Ecuadorian inhabitants), followed by Esmeraldas (135,190 inhabitants). The Provinces of Pichincha and Manabí have an average of between 58,000 and 83,000 Afro-Ecuadorian inhabitants in urban areas. The province with the largest Afro-Ecuadorian population in rural areas is Esmeraldas (99,321 inhabitants), followed by Manabí (23,524), Guayas (32,546) and Pichincha (33,941). According to the 2010 census, the vast majority of the Afro-Ecuadorian population is under the age of 30 years. Civil society estimates that the proportion of AfroEcuadorians is now closer to 10 per cent of the population. The Government was preparing for the next census, in 2020, and it will be important that people of African descent are included at all stages of the preparations and implementation to obtain accurate results. III. Legal framework and steps taken for the protection of the human rights of people of African descent A. Legal framework 11. Ecuador has demonstrated its commitment to human rights and ratified all major international and regional human rights treaties. On 10 December 2019, Ecuador ratified the Inter-American Convention against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Related Forms of Intolerance.7 Ecuador is also signatory to the Andean Charter for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, of 2002, which promotes Andean unity based on the recognition of the diversity of the signatories’ territories, peoples, ethnic groups and cultures, with the firm belief that democracy, development and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. 12. The Constitution of 2008 is groundbreaking and contains specific provisions to protect the human rights of people of African descent. It establishes that Ecuador is an intercultural and multinational State. The Constitution recognizes the collective rights of Afro-Ecuadorian peoples, as set forth in the Constitution, the law, and agreements, conventions, declarations and other international human rights instruments. It also establishes that all rights and guarantees contained in the Constitution and international instruments are of direct and immediate application. 13. The collective rights of indigenous, Afro-Ecuadorian and Montubio peoples (articles 1, 11, 56, 57, 58 and 59 of the Constitution) include freedom from racism or any form of discrimination based on their origin or ethnic or cultural identity; recognition, reparation and compensation for community groups affected by racism, xenophobia and other related forms of intolerance and discrimination; keeping ownership, without being subject to a statute of limitations, of their community lands, which are unalienable, immune from seizure and indivisible, and exempt from payment of fees or taxes; keeping ownership of ancestral lands and territories and obtaining allocation of these lands free of charge; and participating in the use, usufruct, administration and conservation of natural renewable resources located on their lands. The Constitution also covers the right of these peoples to free prior informed consultation, within a reasonable period of time, on plans and programmes for prospecting, exploiting and marketing non-renewable resources located on their lands and which could have an environmental or cultural impact on them, and to participate in the profits earned from such projects and to receive compensation for social, cultural and environmental damages caused to them; such consultation must be conducted by the competent authorities and must be mandatory and in due time, and if the consent of the consulted community is not obtained, steps provided for by the Constitution and the law must be taken. The Constitution also includes nature as a rights holder (art. 71). 7 4 Executive Decree No. 942. On 14 January 2020, Ecuador deposited the instrument of ratification to the General Secretariat of the Organization of the American States.