A/HRC/44/28
supports global, regional and national capacity-building within the ambit of the United
Nations human rights system. It provides Secretariat support to mechanisms of the General
Assembly, the Human Rights Council and the human rights treaty bodies, including
mandates on commissions of inquiry, fact-finding missions and transitional justice
programmes. OHCHR also contributes to system-wide work, including by leading or coleading coordination bodies. It liaises with the Department of Peace Operations and the
Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs in implementing human rights policies
linked to peace operations. Paragraphs 16 to 23 below provide selected examples of the
work of OHCHR over the past year at the global level aimed at implementing and
enhancing international cooperation in the field of human rights.
OHCHR promotes the integration of human rights in development policy, doctrine
and frameworks, including in strategic analysis, programming, policy support and advocacy
at all levels. The Office continued to mainstream human rights through the United Nations
Sustainable Development Group globally and through resident coordinators and United
Nations country teams locally. In the United Nations Sustainable Development Group,
OHCHR co-chaired the task team on leaving no one behind, human rights and the
normative agenda, and contributed to different work streams, notably on resident
coordinators’ human rights leadership, deployment of human rights advisers and piloting
the United Nations Sustainable Development Group operational guide for country teams in
Cameroon, Nepal and Tunisia. OHCHR jointly leads the development of practical tools to
support United Nations country teams in integrating human rights in development
operations, notably the United Nations Sustainable Development Group operational guide
on leaving no-one behind and the common learning package on a human rights-based
approach to development cooperation to align it with the United Nations Sustainable
Development Cooperation Framework.
OHCHR continued to mainstream the right to development, including through
research, advocacy, outreach and collaboration. In partnership with the University for Peace
and the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health, it continued to
deliver an interactive, online module on operationalizing the right to development in
implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. To date, 306 participants from 116
countries have participated in the module. The Office supported the Chair-Rapporteur of
the Working Group on the Right to Development in implementing the Human Rights
Council mandate to elaborate a legally binding instrument on the right to development. To
this end, it convened an expert group meeting which drew up a draft convention, which the
Chair-Rapporteur will present to the Working Group at its twenty-first session.
OHCHR maintains fruitful cooperation with international financial institutions in
pursuit of its mandate. In that context, the Office published The Other Infrastructure Gap:
Sustainability and disseminated it, including through the Global Forum on Responsible
Business Conduct of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) and the Forum on Business and Human Rights. An open letter from the High
Commissioner to the member States of the Group of 20 (G20) foregrounded a historic
agreement at the G20 Summit held in 2019 at Osaka, Japan, on the inclusion within the new
G20 Principles for Quality Infrastructure Investment of a responsibility to respect human
rights. OHCHR monitored infrastructure projects and supported project-affected
communities in several countries, in partnership with the respective Governments, project
financiers, businesses and implementing authorities. The Office engaged in policy
dialogues with multilateral development banks and other development financing
institutions on their social and environmental safeguard policy review processes, including
the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Asian Development Bank and
the Inter-American Development Bank. It produced a draft due diligence benchmarking
study, comparing the safeguard policies of development finance institutions with the
standards in the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and collaborated with
the independent accountability mechanisms of multilateral development banks to develop
and strengthen the effectiveness of policies and procedures on reprisals.
Through its country offices, OHCHR has been extending thematic and technical
support to local entities, including Governments, civil society and businesses, to implement
plans and policies on business and human rights. In international cooperation efforts,
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