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Gov’t Must Be Resolute On Implementation of United Nations’ UPR Recommendations on Human Rights—Danish Ambassador

By Ajarfor Emmanuel Abugri
Headlines Govt Must Be Resolute On Implementation of United Nations UPR Recommendations on Human Rights—Danish Ambassador
AUG 25, 2018 LISTEN

The government has been urged to take a firm approach in order not to compromise on their efforts towards the implementation of the 212 recommendations it adopted from the United Nations 241 Universal Periodic Review (UPR) recommendations to promote human rights in Ghana.

The Denmark Ambassador to Ghana, Her Excellency Tove Degnbol appealed to Government to be resolute in its implementation of the various recommendations keeping in mind the Vienna Declaration which reaffirms in no uncertain terms the solemn commitment of all States to fulfill their obligations to promote universal respect for, and observance and protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.

She said religion, culture and tradition should not be barriers to preventing the implementation of internationally accepted human rights standards especially those to which Ghana has signed up to or accepted.

“There is no justification for the rights of any persons to be violated. Human rights apply to all persons anywhere and anytime and this is a core value to the Government of Denmark,” she opined.

Mrs. Degnbol said Human Rights Policies cannot be curated and implemented by Government alone.

She emphasized that in order to be effective, there has to be a strong partnership between Government, CSOs, Development Partners and other key stakeholders.

According to her, although the approaches may be different from the various sectors, the ultimate aim is to create a society in which every individual's rights are guaranteed and protected as stipulated by the international conventions.

She indicated that the national dialogue is not different from what is currently going on in Denmark regarding the UPR process adding, “The CSOs are currently engaging the Government of Denmark on implementation strategies of the recommendations Denmark had accepted in the last UPR process.”

The Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Madam Gifty Twum-Ampofo said our attention should focus on building a national system to strengthen the implementation and not on how many we accepted as a country.

She noted the need to ensure the proper mainstreaming of these recommendations into our national planning system to ensure effective implementation and tracking of successes was also reiterated.

The sector minister reiterates the need to plan for provision and allocation of resources needed by both government and civil society organizations.

She said this at the 3day Multi-stakeholder National dialogue on the implementation of the UPR recommendations under the theme, “Consolidating Stakeholders' Effort Towards the Implementation of Ghana's 3rd Circle UPR Recommendations,” organized by POS Foundation in collaboration with DANIDA and UPR Info in Accra.

The Solicitor General On behalf of the Hon. Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Mrs. Helen Ziwu said the challenge is facing the implementation is that after the two UPR cycles, Government endeavoured to fully or partially implement some of the recommendations that she accepted.

“Certainly, those implementations did not come on a silver platter. In reporting to the Human Rights Council, for the third cycle ad hoc working group made up of various Government institutions was inaugurated to collate the report, since as a nation we did not have a standing coordinating body for the implementation and reporting on recommendations,” she stated.

Mrs. Ziwu indicated that central to the 212 recommendations are access to justice, protection of rights of persons with disability, women and children's rights, access to good healthcare, etc.

According to her, they will ensure that those recommendations which have been accepted by Government are collectively implemented by creating space for all stakeholders to be actively involved in this process.

“I am therefore pleased that we have the commitment of Government to implement not only the recommendations that we received from the UN Human Rights Council but also to develop a holistic system that will ensure that we follow through with all our Treaty obligations under the various Human Rights Treaties to which Ghana is a party to,” she posited.

Mrs. Ziwu added that Cabinet approved the setting up of a National Mechanism for Reporting and Follow up on 11th January 2017.

“We will explore the possibilities and benefits of the different options presented to us including having an Ad hoc; Ministerial; Inter-ministerial or Multi-stakeholder frameworks,” she intimated.

According to her, her office will reach out to Developments Partners in Ghana and beyond to help them come up with a robust and user-friendly monitoring system such as was developed by the State of Paraguay which established an online monitoring platform known as SIMORE (System for Monitoring Recommendations).

She indicated that the system which allows all the arms of government, that is the executive, legislature and judiciary to work together as independent institutions to follow up on the recommendations.

The Executive Director of Perfector of Sentiments (POS Foundation), Jonathan Osei Owusu noted that the approach is to collaborate with UPR stakeholders to adopt a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)/ roadmap that would detail the joint steps towards the implementation and monitoring of the UPR recommendations accepted by the Government during its 3rd review in Geneva by the Human RightsCouncil.

He added that the objective of the dialogue is to foster cooperation among Government and CSOs on the implementation and monitoring of UPR Recommendations through the review and discussion of a proposed Implementation Plan.

Mr. Osei said it will enable them to evaluate CSO activities towards the implementation of the UPR Recommendations and further discuss the establishment of a Desk/Secretariat at the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General for the Implementation of the UPR Recommendations.

About the Universal Periodic Review (UPR)
The UPR is, therefore, a unique Human Rights mechanism where each of the 194 UN Member States is peer-reviewed and examined on their entire human rights record every five years regardless of its size or political influence, under the same rules and supervision.

States are required to respond not only to all recommendations made by its peers but also to provide data on the implementation of recommendations it has previously accepted, including voluntary commitments.

It remains a co-operative process that requires the full participation of the State under Review and complements the work of all UN treaty bodies. The UPR is a very important process for advancing the realization of human rights Nationally, Regionally and Globally.

Ghana's Universal Periodic Review
Ghana's human rights record was reviewed by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), UPR Working Group (WG) in May 2008 (1 st Cycle) and in October 2012 (2nd Cycle). The country underwent the 3rd Cycle review on 7th November 2017 and received 241 recommendations.

In the draft report of the UPR WG, 200 recommendations enjoyed the support of Ghana while 41 were noted. During the formal adoption that took place in March 2018, Ghana accepted an additional 12 recommendations (10 accepted and 2 partially accepted) out of the 41. That brings the number of the total accepted recommendations by Ghana to 212 out of 241, while 29 recommendations were noted.

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