Partnership

Partnership with UN agencies and programmes

Enhanced collaboration with other United Nations actors in the implementation of technical cooperation activities allows for maximizing their impact and more efficient use of resources. OHCHR is undertaking an Office-wide evaluation to determine how to enhance its operational support to UN Country Teams that are integrating human rights into their Common Country Analysis (CCA) and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF). This assessment will lead to a longer term programme to identify and meet the needs of UN Country Teams in undertaking rights based development programmes

Close cooperation is particularly significant with UNDP, based on the memorandum of understanding in force between the two agencies. One example is the joint programme for Human Rights Strengthening, HURIST, supporting the implementation of UNDP's policy on human rights as presented in the policy document "Integrating Human Rights with Sustainable Human Development". Its primary purposes are to test guidelines and methodologies and to identify best practices and learning opportunities in the development of national capacities for the promotion and protection of human rights and in the application of a human rights approach to development programming.

Another joint initiative is the ACT (Assisting Communities Together) Project launched in 1998 as a practical contribution to the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It focuses on a "bottom-up approach" by emphasizing the role that civil society plays in the promotion and protection of human rights. The long-term objectives of the ACT Project are to empower people at the local level to be proactive in ensuring greater respect for human rights and to strengthen partnerships between the United Nations and local human rights constituencies. The project supports institutions, non-governmental organizations and individuals undertaking human rights promotion initiatives by providing micro-grants of up to US$ 5,000. ACT is part of the global OHCHR project for the implementation of the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education (1995-2004) which is funded through the Voluntary Fund for Technical Cooperation.

OHCHR continues to implement technical cooperation projects at the national, regional and global levels in close cooperation with other United Nations agencies and programmes, such as the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for the Advancement of Women of the Secretariat, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the United Nations Staff College and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Cooperation with non-UN partners

The Programme has also taken steps to collaborate with non-United Nations partners such as the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the African Commission on Human Rights and Peoples� Rights, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights (IIHR), the United Nations Latin American Institute for Crime Prevention and the Treatment of Offenders (ILANUD), the Andean Commission of Jurists and others. For example, the OHCHR and the OSCE have a joint office in Abkhazia (Georgia) for the purpose, inter alia, of implementing a technical cooperation project.