A/HRC/27/20 56. The technical guidance has also influenced the development of the Human Rights and Gender Mainstreaming Manual for Health Professionals, produced by the Ministry of Health of Uganda with the technical support of the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development. The manual seeks to integrate a human rights-based approach into policies, programmes and services. 57. Another signal of the positive reception for the technical guidance has been the request by the Human Rights Council for the development of technical guidance on applying a human rights-based approach to the implementation of policies and programmes to reduce and eliminate preventable mortality and morbidity in children under 5 years of age, which envisions a process similar to that carried out with the maternal mortality technical guidance. There are well-recognized links between maternal mortality and child mortality, and considerable efforts have been invested to ensure that the two technical guidances are complementary and harmonious. IV. Challenges for the implementation of the technical guidance 58. The diversity of stakeholders engaging with the technical guidance, as well as the wide variety of contexts in which the technical guidance is being utilized, is encouraging. In order to promote further implementation of the guidance, and rights-based approaches more broadly, several challenges can be noted for further work. A. Time required 59. Implementing a rights-based approach is a long-term process, for several reasons. In many contexts, applying a rights-based approach is a new way of operating, and shifting working methods and mentalities requires time. By its nature, a rights-based approach requires extensive consultation, which is also a lengthy endeavour. Specifically, it must be borne in mind that planning cycles at the national and international levels vary from anywhere between 4 and 10 years, which means that the strategic moments for integrating a rights-based approach are not always imminent. However, in the meantime, much capacitybuilding work may be undertaken. In addition to the time required to put rights-based policies and programmes in place, it will take many more years for the health outcomes of such policies to be properly measured and understood. 60. The technical guidance was presented to the Council in September 2012, and the present report was finalized in June 2014, leaving less than two years to examine how the technical guidance is being implemented. At this early stage, many promising initiatives have been started, but assessing the implementation of the guidance would only be possible with more time. B. Dissemination 61. Many stakeholders reported that the technical guidance has not been widely disseminated and thus is not widely known. Ensuring that documents agreed at the international level reach the policymakers and other stakeholders who are concerned is a larger issue, which many could have a role in addressing. As detailed above, considerable efforts have been deployed to ensure broad dissemination of the technical guidance, but more are required if the technical guidance is to be more widely utilized. Governments play an important role in sharing information among ministries and other national and subnational authorities to ensure that there is coherence between international-level commitments and national-level action. The United Nations can also help to ensure 15