The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) organised a consultation meeting on the Plan of Action for the Fourth Phase (2020-2024) of the World Programme for Human Rights Education. The UN Human Rights Council decided to make youth the focus of that phase of the Programme, which is a global UN initiative proclaimed by the General Assembly in 2004 and coordinated by OHCHR. HREYN was represented on the meeting by the Board Chair - Nika BAKHSOLIANI.
The Objectives of the consultation were:
- To identify the main components of an effective national strategy for human rights education for youth;
- To review and further develop a preliminary draft of the Plan of Action for the Fourth Phase (2020-2024) of the World Programme, which provides guidance for developing and implementing the above-mentioned strategy;
- To discuss ways to encourage national implementation of the Plan of Action once it is adopted by the UN Human Rights Council.
The first day of the meeting started by reviewing the previous phases of the world programme and identifying relevant UN and other instruments and documents which are connected to human rights education for youth. The meeting went on with identifying recommendations for the strategic elements of the programme and was finished by planning the dissemination.
The second day of the consultation was concentrated on planning the national strategy recommendations for human rights education and was crowned by the address of the UN Youth Envoy - Ms Jayathma Wickramanayake.
The Plan of Action for the Fourth Phase of the World Programme for Human Rights Education will be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council for its consideration in September 2019 and it will be used as a roadmap for the member states to increase young people’s access to quality human rights education and a tool for Civil Society Organisations to advocate for that cause. With its Strategic Plan for 2019-2024, HREYN’s directions go in line with the Plan of Action, the board has decided to incorporate the World Programme in upcoming projects and especially use it as a tool to advocate human rights education, which is one of the strategic aims of the network.
