A/HRC/6/10 page 7 16. Several delegates provided overviews of their countries’ national initiatives. In particular, they discussed the development of national action plans to promote diversity, constitutional and legislative measures to protect the collective rights of people of African descent and indigenous peoples and the establishment of independent specialized national human rights institutions to combat racism and racial discrimination. 17. A representative also made a presentation, on behalf of a regional group, on the implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action at the regional level, outlining the work done on the strengthening of regional anti-discrimination legislation; the development of anti-racism strategies, and the enactment of laws criminalizing acts of a racist and xenophobic nature. Observers also took the floor to inform the Working Group on their implementation activities in recent months. IV. THEMATIC ANALYSIS: THE ROLE OF NATIONAL ACTION PLANS A. Presentations by panellists 18. During the first part of its fifth session, the Working Group began its thematic analysis on national action plans. The Director of Institution Relations and International Affairs of the National Council for Prevention of Discrimination of Mexico analysed the problem of discrimination in his country. He highlighted the initiatives of the Government of Mexico to implement the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action. He drew attention to the multi-dimensional nature of discrimination and pointed out that there was no single strategy to combat discrimination. He also stressed that often discrimination was not strictly a legal issue: the real problem lay in the translation of standards into practice. 19. The attorney from the European Roma Rights Centre in Budapest focused her presentation on the Roma people and the essential components which should be included in an effective national action plan. She explained that there were two effective avenues for addressing racial discrimination: legislative frameworks and governmental policies. She explained that countries needed to review and reassess all relevant policies and their impact, instead of simply synthesizing existing policies. She also stressed the importance of mainstreaming social inclusion into all laws and policies, setting clear and specific implementation objectives, determining indicators for monitoring and ensuring funding for implementation. Public independent bodies were essential for investigating, prosecuting and monitoring acts of discrimination. She noted the necessity of transparency, information-sharing and cooperation among concerned Government ministries. 20. The human rights consultant to Forum Asia, provided a comparative analysis of national action plans. He pointed out that the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action provided important guidelines for combating racism. In the Asia Pacific region, 12 countries had adopted national action plans on human rights which addressed the need to protect vulnerable groups, even if they did not use the word “discrimination”. He flagged the importance of the grounds of “descent” when examining discrimination, and referred to the system of protection of women against violence adopted by India as an example of how soft law could become hard law. While he acknowledged that there was a need for new norms in a few areas, the main issue was the proper implementation of existing standards.