A/HRC/35/20 particularly through the work of a number of human rights advisors to United Nations country teams.19 1. Helping States to mainstream rights through the United Nations Development Group human rights mainstreaming mechanism 60. In November 2009, the United Nations Development Group created the human rights mainstreaming mechanism, with the participation of 19 United Nations agencies, funds and programmes. OHCHR chairs the mechanism, with a rotating deputy, which ensures the full buy-in of other agencies. The mechanism is responding directly to the increasing demand from Member States for more technical assistance on human rights mainstreaming and on how to apply rights-based approaches to national development strategies. The mechanism also seeks to strengthen coordinated United Nations responses to requests from Member States for support in their efforts to meet their international human rights commitments. In addition, the United Nations Development Group recently produced a guidance note on human rights for resident coordinators and United Nations country teams, which will further assist resident coordinators and country teams’ efforts to support States with technical cooperation. 2. UNICEF assisting States to implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child 61. The explicit reference to UNICEF in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the long-term cooperation by UNICEF with States’ efforts to implement the Convention makes it an important provider of technical assistance. The need for cooperation to implement the Convention is recognized in several of its provisions. States are explicitly encouraged in article 4 to seek and use international cooperation for implementation, while UNICEF is specifically called upon in article 45 to assist States to ensure rights. UNICEFsupported technical cooperation takes place in the 191 countries where UNICEF is present and on a large number of child rights issues, including but not limited to children and armed conflict, child labour, trafficking, sexual and gender-based violence, and justice for children. 62. UNICEF has also played an increasingly important role in supporting all the phases of the Convention on the Rights of the Child reporting process by facilitating States’ constructive dialogue with the Committee on the Rights of the Child, supporting a participatory and inclusive process that involves all sectors of society, providing reports on the situation of children in each country, and contributing to the dissemination, implementation and follow-up of the concluding observations. 3. UNDP: an increasingly important human rights partner for States, national human rights institutions and civil society 63. UNDP provides policy advice, technical cooperation and capacity development in over 100 countries in relation to the United Nations human rights machinery. One example is its support for the universal periodic review process, which falls within the agency’s long-standing engagement with human rights mechanisms — most commonly in close cooperation with OHCHR. The universal periodic review follow-up facility is a project of UNDP in Europe and Central Asia and the UNDP Regional Centre for Europe and Central Asia and is aimed at supporting national partners and UNDP country offices to build capacity around the universal periodic review and implement agreed human rights recommendations at the request of the programme countries/United Nations Member States. The technical cooperation activities span from dissemination of basic information on the universal periodic review process to concrete support for implementation of recommendations. Substantial UNDP efforts have been dedicated to ensuring broader participation of civil society and national human rights institutions in the universal periodic review process, including in human rights assessments (e.g. Georgia), report preparation (e.g. Bosnia and Herzegovina) and follow-up on implementation of universal periodic review recommendations (e.g. Kyrgyzstan). Another example is the extensive support that 19 See A/HRC/29/48, para. 22 and paras. 38-41. 13