strengthened mandate on the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the establishment of the Trust Fund
On 24 March 2017, the Human Rights Council adopted without a vote
resolution 34/40entitled
Promoting the Voluntary Technical Assistance Trust Fund to Support the Participation of Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States in the Work of the Human Rights Council.
Resolution 34/40 was sponsored /co-sponsored
by 120 countries hence becoming the second most sponsored resolution since the establishment of the Human Rights Council in 2006.
The resolution recognizes:
- the continued achievements of the Trust Fund since its operationalization in 2014, and in particular its contribution to the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the Human Rights Council at its thirty-second session in June 2016: for the first time ever, universal participation of
the United Nations Member States was achieved;
- the
creation and provision of an e-learning tool, in the working languages of theUN, providing initial training and information on the rules, functioning and customary practices of the Council and its mechanisms; and
- the efforts made by the secretariat of the Trust Fund to
conduct its work in different working languages of the United Nations;
In the same resolution, the HRC decides that the Trust Fund:
- conducts at least one
briefing a year in New York on the outcomes of the regular and special sessions of the Human Rights Council, prior to the commencement of each session of the General Assembly. The briefing aims at supporting the engagement of LDCs/SIDS delegations in the work of the Third Committee;
- conducts
workshops in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and the Caribbean, before the tenth anniversary of the Trust Fund, reflecting on its achievements, identifying where further improvements might be made and assessing the value of its activities in fulfilling its training and capacity-building mandate in support of the engagement of LDCs/SIDS and its mechanisms; and
- requests the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to
prepare a report in which the Office evaluates the activities of the Trust Fund in meeting its training and capacity-building mandate, and to present the report to the Human Rights Council at its forty-ninth session.
