19/31 Joint workplan of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights - Report of the Secretary-General

United Nations A/HRC/19/31–E/CN.6/2012/12

General Assembly Economic and Social Council

Distr.: General 9 December 2011

Original: English

11-63199 (E) 231211 *1163199*

General Assembly Economic and Social Council Human Rights Council Commission on the Status of Women Nineteenth session Fifty-sixth session 27 February-23 March 2012 27 February-9 March 2012 Item 3 (c) of the provisional agenda* Follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on

Women and to the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly, entitled “Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century”: Gender mainstreaming, situations and programmatic matters

Joint workplan of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Report of the Secretary-General

Summary The present report provides a review of cooperation between the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. It also presents the joint workplan for 2012.

* E/CN.6/2012/1.

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Contents Page

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

II. Review of cooperation in 2011. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

A. Inter-agency mechanisms and initiatives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

B. Human rights treaty bodies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

C. Human rights special procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

D. Cooperation at the country level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

E. Intergovernmental bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

F. Information dissemination and development of tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

III. Joint workplan for 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

IV. Recommendations for new and strengthened modalities for cooperation between UN-Women and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

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I. Introduction

1. The present report is submitted in accordance with Commission on the Status of Women resolutions 38/2 of 18 March 1994 (see E/1994/27, chap. I.C) and 39/5 of 31 March 1995 (see E/1995/26, chap. I.C), Commission on Human Rights resolution 1997/43 of 11 April 1997 (see E/1997/23, chap. II.A) and Human Rights Council resolution 6/30 of 14 December 2007 (see A/63/53, chap. I.A). On the basis of those resolutions, a joint workplan has been prepared annually.

2. The establishment of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), by the General Assembly has provided the opportunity for greater coordination among the entities of the United Nations system on gender equality and women’s empowerment, including between UN- Women and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. UN-Women has made progress in developing a coordination strategy which builds on existing United Nations mechanisms across the United Nations system. In 2011, the Office of the High Commissioner, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, provided inputs during the development of the UN-Women strategic plan 2011-2013, which was endorsed by the Executive Board of UN-Women in June 2011. Cooperation between UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner has intensified and plans are under way to strengthen collaboration within a mutually agreed broad strategic framework. The major areas of cooperation where activities were carried out jointly by UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner in 2011 are outlined below, as are plans for cooperation in 2012. Some of the activities highlighted are ongoing activities and others represent new initiatives. The list of joint activities is not intended to be exhaustive.

II. Review of cooperation in 2011

A. Inter-agency mechanisms and initiatives

3. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner continued to cooperate within the framework of inter-agency mechanisms. Both entities participated in the tenth session of the Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality, held in New York from 16 to 18 February 2011. Both entities participated in the work of several of the task forces of the Inter-Agency Network, including its Inter-Agency Task Force on Violence against Women, as well as the Inter-Agency Task Force on Women, Peace and Security, which has been converted into a Standing Committee chaired by UN-Women. The Office of the High Commissioner contributed to the inventory of activities of the United Nations system on violence against women, compiled by UN-Women in February 2011, an undertaking that was among the activities of the Task Force on Violence against Women. Activities undertaken by the Standing Committee on Women, Peace and Security of the Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality included work on indicators and on the development of a strategic framework to guide the United Nations in its implementation of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000). The Office of the High Commissioner and UN-Women are also working together in the development of terms of reference for yet another task force of the Inter-Agency Network, one to be

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focused on women’s access to justice, so as to ensure system-wide coherence on the issue. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner participated in the United Nations Development Group task team on aid effectiveness. As tasked by the Policy Committee, UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner are cooperating in developing a guidance note on reparations for conflict-related sexual violence and in this regard, have initiated a study, whose findings will be released in early 2012.

4. Both entities continued to participate in the Human Rights Mechanism of the United Nations Development Group as well as in the United Nations Rule of Law Coordination and Resource Group, with a view, in particular, to ensuring that United Nations system guidance on country programming processes advances women’s human rights and gender equality. Both entities are also members of the Inter- Agency Cooperation Group against Trafficking in Persons, chaired in 2011 by the Office of the High Commissioner. Both entities also participated in the work of the Global Migration Group, which organized a Symposium on Migration and Youth: Harnessing Opportunities for Development, on 17 and 18 May 2011 in New York in connection with the General Assembly Informal Thematic Debate on International Migration and Development, held on 19 May 2011. The Office of the High Commissioner participated in the consultation for Europe-based entities on the System-wide Action Plan (SWAP), a United Nations global initiative on gender equality and women’s empowerment, held in Geneva on 16 and 17 September 2011, and coordinated by UN-Women. Following the consultation, the Office of the High Commissioner decided to be one of the pilot testers of the draft SWAP between December 2011 and January 2012. Such testing will be part of the pilot review process, preparatory to the draft’s submission to the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination scheduled for April 2012.

5. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner are both active members of United Nations Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict and have cooperated in the development of the United Nations system monitoring, analysis and reporting arrangements. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner co-organized a panel discussion in May 2011 in New York on securing justice for women in post- conflict States, which brought together a wide range of United Nations experts, representatives of Member States, academics and national and international non-governmental organizations for a richly rewarding discussion on the issue. The Office of the High Commissioner also participated in the evaluation of projects and decision-making within the context of the provision of grants by the United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women, which is managed by UN-Women on behalf of the United Nations system.

6. In June 2011, the Office of the High Commissioner and UN-Women, along with the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), issued a joint inter- agency statement on preventing gender-biased sex selection. The statement reaffirms the commitment of United Nations organizations to encouraging and supporting efforts by States, international and national organizations, civil society and communities to uphold the rights of girls and women and to address the multiple manifestations of gender discrimination, including the problem of imbalanced sex ratios caused by sex selection. It highlights the public-health and human rights dimensions and implications of the problem and provides recommendations on how best to take effective action.

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B. Human rights treaty bodies

7. In its capacity as supporter of the work of human rights treaty bodies, the Office of the High Commissioner facilitates inputs from UN-Women, including through exchange and dissemination of information on the human rights treaty system. The Chair and members of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women met with the Executive Director of UN-Women in February 2011 to discuss issues of common concern and ways to establish an effective framework for future collaboration and coordination, with a view to increasing awareness of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,1 and furthering progress in achieving gender equality and ensuring women’s rights. In this regard, both the Committee and UN-Women have appointed focal points to consider practical ways to further their cooperation.

8. UN-Women has provided technical and other support to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in its work on elaborating a general recommendation on the protection of women in conflict and post-conflict situations and worked in collaboration with the Office of the High Commissioner on organizing the general discussion of the Committee on the topic during the Committee’s forty-ninth session in July 2011. The Deputy Executive Director, Intergovernmental Support and Strategic Partnerships Bureau, of UN-Women, delivered an opening address at the general discussion.

9. The Deputy Executive Director also addressed the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women during its forty-ninth session. At the same session, UN-Women, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), conducted a lunchtime briefing on the gender-equality dimensions of HIV/AIDS, in furtherance of the joint mandate of UN-Women and UNDP, under the UNAIDS Agenda for Accelerated Country Action for Women, Girls, Gender Equality and HIV, to provide support to countries in reporting on how the HIV epidemic is affecting women and girls, and in implementing the Committee’s concluding observations. Further, UN-Women briefed the Committee on its 2011 publication entitled “Progress of the world’s women 2011-2012: in pursuit of justice”. UN-Women regularly invites experts from the Committee to participate in expert group meetings and side events convened in conjunction with intergovernmental processes.

C. Human rights special procedures

10. UN-Women continued its interaction with special procedures mandate holders, which are supported by the Office of the High Commissioner. Moreover, UN-Women is collaborating closely with the newly established Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice. The Executive Director of UN-Women held a meeting with some members of the Working Group in June 2011 and two representatives of UN-Women participated in the second session of the Working Group, held in October 2011. UN-Women maintained contact and interaction with the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and

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1 United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1249, No. 20378.

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consequences, including with regard to her upcoming thematic report on “due diligence”. The Executive Director of UN-Women met with the Special Rapporteur in March 2011. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner, along with UNFPA, were also represented at an expert group meeting on the topic of gender- motivated killings of women, convened by the Special Rapporteur on violence against women in New York in October 2011.

11. The Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, supported by the Office of the High Commissioner, held a number of exchanges of information with UN-Women during the period of preparation of her 2011 thematic reports to the Human Rights Council and General Assembly, which focused on some aspects of the multifaceted relationship between gender and the judiciary, within the broader context of the administration of justice. UN-Women continued to exchange information with other special procedures mandate-holders in relation to each other’s activities, including during country visits of special rapporteurs supported by the Office of the High Commissioner and its regional and country field presences, one such visit being that of the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, to Thailand in August 2011.

D. Cooperation at the country level

12. Both UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner continued to participate in the activities of United Nations country teams, with the goal of promoting equality between women and men and the realization of women’s human rights, including in joint programmes on human rights and on gender equality, “Delivering as one” programmes, human rights and gender theme groups and a range of task forces and other groups established at the national level. In particular, UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner continued to support implementation of the major international human rights instruments, including through advocacy for legal and policy reforms and institutional support to national machineries for gender equality and human rights departments.

13. For example, the United Nations Gender Thematic Group in Cameroon, of which both entities are members, organized International Women’s Day events including a march in the capital and seminars at two universities, and supported various Government ministries in building their capacity in the area of women’s human rights. The two entities are also cooperating to address gender-based violence in Senegal and to strengthen women’s access to justice in Mali. In Senegal, for instance, UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner, together with civil society organizations, are organizing a series of activities in the context of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence campaign. In Honduras and Panama, UN-Women is working together with the Office of the High Commissioner on issues involving women of African descent and indigenous women through training and capacity development activities as well as in providing guidance on the preparation of communications to special procedures mandate-holders. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner are also participating as members of the Global Migration Group (GMG) in carrying out a four-country pilot project devised to implement the guidance provided by the Global Migration Group publication entitled Mainstreaming Migration into Development Planning: A Handbook for

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Policy-makers and Practitioners2 in Bangladesh, Jamaica, Mali and the Republic of Moldova.

14. In Cairo in October 2011, UN-Women, the Office of the High Commissioner and the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) co-organized the Forum for Young Women and Men in the Arab Uprising: Agents of Democratic Change. The Executive Director of UN-Women and the Chief of the Rule of Law, Equality and Non-Discrimination Branch of the Office of the High Commissioner participated in this meeting, which aimed at developing a forward-looking agenda for promoting women’s active participation in the transitional processes in the region, with a focus on the legislative, economic, social and leadership issues involved and on identifying priority needs in capacity-building as they affect young women and men as agents of change. In November 2011, UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner jointly organized a meeting in Uganda on issues of justice and amnesty for conflict-related crimes in order to foster more in-depth consultations on the forthcoming renewal of the amnesty bill with communities and, in particular, affected women.

15. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner provide support to countries in implementing their obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women through regional and country offices and in close coordination with the United Nations country teams. This encompasses a range of activities, including training and capacity-building workshops and other support for preparation of country reports. As examples in this regard, there have been workshops in Peru, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Sierra Leone, and consultations in Kosovo and elsewhere, aimed at strengthening engagement of Governments and other stakeholders in reporting on the implementation of the Convention. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner have provided support to countries in preparing for the constructive dialogue with the Committee, including sponsorship of Government officials of Côte d’Ivoire and Zimbabwe as observers at the forty-ninth and fiftieth sessions of the Committee in July and October 2011, as well as support through “mock sessions”, in Oman, for example. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner have also provided support in the area of follow-up to concluding observations, including to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic in the preparation of its follow-up report. There has also been training associated with the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.3 UN-Women often organizes workshops and training sessions specifically on the Convention, and regularly invites members of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women to participate. Training sessions organized by the Office of the High Commissioner on Convention implementation are frequently held within training sessions with a broader focus, on treaty body reporting. For example, a training workshop on reporting to the human rights treaty bodies held in the Gambia focused, inter alia, on the drafting of the Common Core Document, as well as the periodic report to the Committee. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner have also cooperated in providing support to countries, for example, Pakistan and Thailand, in preparing or following up on the universal periodic review of the Human Rights Council.

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2 United Nations publication, Sales No. E.10.III.B.32. 3 United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 2131, No. 20378.

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16. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner support the integration of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and other human rights treaties and commitments into national constitutional, and legislative and policy frameworks. They support Governments, parliamentarians and women’s organizations in undertaking initiatives focused on introducing laws and policies or strengthening them so as to ensure that they are gender-sensitive. UN-Women supports, for example, the revision of the marriage law and adoption of a gender-equality law in Indonesia; the review of proposed draft laws from a Convention perspective in Viet Nam; the development of laws on gender-based violence in Guinea-Bissau and on domestic work in Paraguay, with a view to broadening the rights of women domestic workers; and the drafting of laws in the context of the Legal Commission for the Equity of Women in Colombia. Offices of the Office of the High Commissioner, in coordination with United Nations country teams, also advocate for legal reforms aimed at eliminating discrimination against women and guaranteeing equality in accordance with international human rights standards, for example, in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia with respect to the draft law on gender equality, in Afghanistan with respect especially to family and personal status laws, and in Uganda and Timor-Leste with respect to laws on women’s access to land. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner have also worked together in supporting the Human Rights Commission in Zimbabwe, for instance, by jointly organizing a workshop on gender equality and women’s rights for the Commission, which included the participation of a member of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

17. In the area of reparations, UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner are cooperating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the piloting of a community reparations programme as a follow-up to the high-level panel on sexual violence in that country, which was convened by the Office of the High Commissioner in 2010. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner are also collaborating on gender-sensitive reparations programmes in other countries, for example, Uganda and Nepal. The Office of the High Commissioner, as a co-lead entity of the Team of Experts on sexual violence in conflict established under Security Council resolution 1888 (2009), benefited from its cooperation with UN-Women during the Team’s deployment to Liberia in April 2011 and South Sudan in June 2011. During both missions, UN-Women provided briefings and advice which facilitated the Team’s work on the ground.

E. Intergovernmental bodies

18. Collaboration in support of intergovernmental bodies continued. The Chair of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, addressed the Commission on the Status of Women at its fifty-fifth session in February 2011. The Executive Director of UN-Women addressed the Human Rights Council at its full-day discussion on women’s rights held in June 2011. In September 2011, the UN-Women Focal Point for Women in the United Nations System participated in a panel discussion on gender integration at the Human Rights Council. In October 2011, the UN-Women Deputy Executive Director, Intergovernmental Support and Strategic Partnerships Bureau, the Chair of the Committee on the Elimination of

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Discrimination against Women and the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, addressed the Third Committee of the General Assembly during the introduction of the agenda item on advancement of women. UN-Women has provided its expertise on the issue of gender-based violence in support of the secretariats of several commissions of inquiry lead by the Office of the High Commissioner. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner are now exploring avenues for more systematic and sustainable cooperation on behalf of commissions of inquiry so as to ensure dedicated gender expertise in line with the report of the Secretary-General on women and peace and security (S/2011/598). At the regional level, UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner, together with UNICEF, supported the work of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children, through capacity-building activities, such as a study tour in January 2011 to Geneva and Strasbourg, which provided exposure to the work of international and regional human rights mechanisms of the United Nations and the Council of Europe.

19. The Office of the High Commissioner provided inputs to the report of the Secretary-General on the situation of and assistance to Palestinian women (E/CN.6/2011/6), which was submitted to the Commission on the Status of Women at its fifty-fifth session. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner continued to support the implementation of global commitments on women and peace and security, including those contained in Security Council resolutions 1325 (2000), 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009) and 1960 (2010). The Office of the High Commissioner contributed to the above-mentioned report of the Secretary-General on women and peace and security which was considered by the Council in October 2011.

F. Information dissemination and development of tools

20. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner continued to update their databases and websites. As regards violence against women, the UN-Women website includes a Virtual Knowledge Centre to End Violence against Women and Girls (www.endvawnow.org), which provides leading expert guidance, good practices and tools in support of country efforts to implement policies, laws and programmes designed to operationalize and implement international human rights standards. The UN-Women website continues to include the database of the Secretary-General on violence against women and work of intergovernmental bodies on violence against women, including the Human Rights Council, and its resolutions on the elimination of discrimination against women, the elimination of violence against women, and trafficking in persons, especially women and children; the work of the special procedures mandate-holders; the universal periodic review; and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner to the Human Rights Council. In June 2011, UN-Women issued the “Handbook for national action plans on violence against women”, which resulted from an expert group meeting held in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, in September 2010, in which a representative of the Office of the High Commissioner participated. The Handbook presents a model framework for national action plans on violence against women, which sets out detailed recommendations, accompanied by explanatory commentaries and good-practice examples. This Handbook adds to a series of tools that have been developed to

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enable stakeholders to address violence against women, including the Handbook for Legislation on Violence against Women4 and the Supplement to the Handbook for Legislation on Violence against Women: “Harmful Practices against Women”.5

III. Joint workplan for 2012

21. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner will continue to cooperate in the promotion of gender equality and the realization of women’s human rights. They will continue to cooperate within the framework of inter-agency mechanisms, including the Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality and the Global Migration Group, among others. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner will continue their work on creating gender-sensitive guidance on reparations for conflict-related sexual violence. The Office of the High Commissioner and UN-Women will also continue working together to follow up on the recommendations of treaty bodies, mandates of special procedures and the universal periodic review as these relate to women’s human rights.

22. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner are also planning to collaborate in the creation of guidance on gender-responsive transitional justice mechanisms, as mandated by the Policy Committee in the context of the seven-point action plan to promote gender-responsive peacebuilding. Both entities will continue to cooperate, with a view to ensuring that United Nations system guidance on country programming advances women’s human rights, for example, through participation in the United Nations Development Group’s Human Rights Mechanism. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner will cooperate and exchange information in support of the work of human rights treaty bodies and enhanced mainstreaming of gender perspectives into their work. UN-Women will, in particular, continue to support the work of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, including in relation to the elaboration of its general recommendation on the protection of women’s human rights in conflict and post- conflict situations, among others. UN-Women and its partners will present a briefing to the Committee on the gender-equality dimensions of HIV and AIDS during its fifty-first session. In addition, UN-Women, together with UNDP and UNAIDS, have established a Task Force which will work closely with the Committee in identifying practical measures to be taken to strengthen their relationship, including in terms of follow-up and implementation of the Committee’s concluding observations related to the gender dimensions of HIV and AIDS.

23. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner will participate in the United Nations country teams, joint programmes, theme groups and other forums at the country and regional levels, with a view to promoting equality between women and men and the realization of women’s human rights, and supporting implementation of the major international human rights instruments. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner will continue to engage in a wide range of activities aimed at supporting countries in implementing their obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, including support for reporting provided, for example, to several countries in the South-East Asia region, whose reports are soon to be considered by the Committee.

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4 United Nations publication, Sales No. E.10.IV.2. 5 United Nations publication, Sales No. E.10.IV.13.

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UN-Women, in cooperation with the Office of the High Commissioner will support follow-up to the Committee’s concluding observations and the implementation of the Convention and other human rights treaties and commitments, through the development and reform of constitutional, and legislative and policy frameworks. As mentioned above, cooperation between UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner will continue in the area of reparations for conflict-related sexual violence. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, the two entities will continue their work aimed at delivering reparations benefits to different communities, as a step leading towards the development of a national reparations programme. The two entities will ensure that truth commissions, commissions of inquiry and accountability mechanisms for violations of international law have the gender expertise necessary to fulfil their mandates through a coordinated approach. The Office of the High Commissioner, as a co-lead entity of the team of experts created pursuant to Security Council resolution 1888 (2009), will continue to cooperate with UN-Women in its field missions and will explore avenues for enhanced collaboration in the near future. Their collaboration in the field of gender integration will be strengthened within the framework of the System-wide Action Plan on gender equality and empowerment of women (SWAP) for which the Office of the High Commissioner has agreed to serve as a pilot during the initial phase of its development.

24. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner will continue to pursue joint capacity development initiatives on improving States’ responses to violence against women, on intersectional discrimination and on the enjoyment of social, economic and cultural rights, in follow-up to the universal periodic review and reports by thematic special procedures. In El Salvador and the Dominican Republic, for example, UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner will advance regional initiatives designed to deepen the understanding of evolving forms of violence against women, to identify and document responses from the justice systems on such violence, and to design tools and methodological guides for investigating violence against women and combating impunity. The Office of the High Commissioner will continue to strengthen cooperation with UN-Women on joint activities designed to facilitate, implement and promote the Secretary- General’s campaign “UNiTE to End Violence against Women”. Further, the Office of the High Commissioner will continue to work closely with UN-Women and the United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women, including on facilitating the Programme Appraisal Committee’s vision to strengthen reference to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women and recommendations of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, in the project review process.

25. In the context of the review of rule of law in peacebuilding, the Office of the High Commissioner will cooperate with UN-Women and other United Nations entities on the development of a guidance note for system-wide use on gender and the rule of law, a process led by UN-Women. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner will continue and strengthen their cooperation in relation to women’s access to justice, including in connection with the proposed establishment of a task force on women’s access to justice of the Inter-agency Network on Women and Gender Equality, and on ensuring that a gender perspective is mainstreamed into all transitional justice measures supported by the United Nations.

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26. Collaboration in support of intergovernmental bodies will continue. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner will seek input and provide comments for reports to be submitted to intergovernmental bodies, and exchange information and cooperate on follow-up to any actions taken by the Commission on the Status of Women or the Human Rights Council. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner will exchange information and seek to collaborate in assisting the Human Rights Council in integrating gender perspectives in its work, including with respect to the universal periodic review process and the work of the special procedures; and, more generally, UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner will continue to support the Chair of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, in respect of participation in the sessions of the Commission on the Status of Women. UN-Women, in coordination with the Office of the High Commissioner, will also aim to facilitate the participation of the Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice in the sessions of the Commission. UN-Women will continue its interaction and collaboration with the special procedures mandate-holders, including the Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice, the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers and the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences. UN-Women will continue its support in connection with the preparation of the 2013 thematic report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women on States’ responsibility regarding due diligence in relation to violence against women. UN-Women looks forward to working with the new mandate-holder, the Special Rapporteur on Truth, Justice and Reparation, to ensure women’s access to comprehensive justice for conflict-related crimes. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner will update and develop their databases, websites and knowledge tools in relation to women’s human rights. At the regional level, UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner will continue to cooperate closely, together with UNICEF and UNDP, on providing support to the ASEAN Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children and the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights and their secretariats.

IV. Recommendations for new and strengthened modalities for cooperation between UN-Women and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

27. A joint workplan has been prepared annually on the basis of resolutions on mainstreaming women’s human rights (Commission on the Status of Women resolutions 38/2 (1994) and 39/5 (1995)) and on integrating the human rights of women throughout the United Nations system (Commission on Human Rights resolution 1997/43 (1997) and Human Rights Council resolution 6/30 (2007)). These resolutions emphasize the importance of coordination and cooperation in respect of women’s human rights, and the integration of women’s rights and a gender perspective throughout the work of the United Nations system.

28. The decision of the General Assembly, in its resolution 64/289, to establish UN-Women brought into being a new entity with unique mandates which span intergovernmental and normative support and inter-agency, policy and operational work and include country, regional and global programming, strategic partnership

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and advocacy. UN-Women has made progress in developing a coordination strategy for strengthening leadership, coordination and accountability on gender equality and women’s empowerment and support to gender mainstreaming across the United Nations system. Women’s rights are at the centre of all efforts of UN-Women. The rights of women are also consistently highlighted in the thematic priorities of the Strategic Management Plan of the Office of the High Commissioner. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner are firmly committed to working together towards the realization of women’s human rights and towards ensuring that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into global action. UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner intend to deepen their cooperation in the future. Towards this end, UN-Women and the Office of the High Commissioner intend, in the coming months, to discuss different types of modalities that can be utilized to place this cooperation on a solid foundation, including, possibly, the conclusion of an exchange of letters, which may be used to exhibit all of the dimensions of their partnership and set clear priorities for future cooperation. The Commission on the Status of Women and the Human Rights Council will be informed of developments in this regard.