A/HRC/45/44/Add.1 and policy framework for the activities of five equality councils – tasked with ensuring the full enjoyment and exercise of rights by promoting the right to equality and nondiscrimination for groups that have historically suffered discrimination – in the following areas: (a) gender (women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons); (b) intergenerational (children, young persons and older persons); (c) peoples and nationalities (indigenous, Afro-Ecuadorian and Montubio peoples); (d) disabilities; and (e) human mobility (migrants). The councils have a mandate to formulate, mainstream, implement, monitor and evaluate public policies related to equality and non-discrimination. Their stated aim is to ensure the full enjoyment and exercise of all the rights set forth in the Constitution and in international human rights instruments and to promote, advance, protect and ensure respect for the rights of persons, communes, communities, peoples, nationalities and other groups in order to strengthen national unity in diversity and forge a multinational and intercultural State 24. The Afro-Ecuadorian Development Corporation, the Council for the Development of the Montubio People of the Ecuadorian Coast and Subtropical Coastal Areas, and the Council for the Development of the Nationalities and Peoples of Ecuador were set up to promote and enhance diversity and different world views and to further the human, endogenous, economic, social and cultural development of the country’s peoples and nationalities. Between 2012 and 2016, they served as transitional councils, pending the establishment of the National Council for the Equality of Peoples and Nationalities; they also designed and implemented the National Agenda for the Equality of Nationalities and Peoples 2013–2017. Within the framework of this agenda, public policies on equality and non-discrimination and affirmative action measures have been implemented at different levels of government. Social indicators with an intercultural focus have been developed, in coordination with the National Statistics and Census Institute, to enable a statistical assessment of the living conditions of the indigenous, Afro-Ecuadorian and Montubio peoples. 25. The adoption in 2009 of the Plurinational Plan for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and Ethnic and Cultural Exclusion, through Executive Decree No. 60, led to the implementation of 15 national programmes and 56 measures relating to legislation, rights, access to communication, international relations, education and citizen participation of Afro-Ecuadorians. 26. The Working Group was informed that specific ethnic equality requirements have been established for competitive examinations for admission to institutions of higher education and public sector jobs, with the aim of ensuring, in the case of the latter, that public institutions include on their payroll the same proportion of members of an ethnic group as the proportion represented by that group within the total national population. Successful candidates in merit-based selection processes who were awarded additional points on the basis of self-identified ethnicity included 255 Afro-Ecuadorian women and 256 Afro-Ecuadorian men, 218 indigenous women and 244 indigenous men, and 270 Montubio women and 217 Montubio men. 27. The National Plan for Good Living 2013–2017 and the National Development Plan 2017–2021, entitled “Toda una Vida” (A Whole Life), are aimed at achieving equality and eradicating poverty on the basis of a multidimensional approach. The National Development Plan 2017–2021 includes objectives, policies and goals aimed at guaranteeing compliance with the constitutional rights of Ecuadorians, eradicating discrimination in any of its manifestations, reducing social exclusion of priority groups in particular, reducing social gaps and recognizing diversity. 28. The Secretariat for Human Rights has the responsibility to promote and ensure compliance with the National Development Plan. Interventions include specific antidiscrimination programmes, campaigns and projects that seek to guarantee the rights of people throughout life, promote diverse identities, strengthen the intercultural and multinational nature of the country and its people, protect the rights of nature for present and future generations, and promote a more active and participative society for an inclusive State. The Plan, and associated public policy, aims to close the inequality gaps and eradicate the discrimination faced by Afro-Ecuadorians and other historically excluded groups. The implementation of the Plan is also the responsibility of the decentralized 6