President of the UN General Assembly's High-level Thematic Debate on Human Rights

We have received the following from Un-NGLS:

UN Headquarters, New York  

12-13 July 2016   

Civil society speakers selected for opening session and interactive segment on "Combatting discrimination and inequalities"

As part of his overall efforts to foster 'A New Commitment to Action',President Mogens Lykketoft will focus his third High Level Thematic Debate (HLTD) on "UN@70: Human Rights at the centre of the global agenda." This event takes place in the context of the 50th anniversary of the international human rights covenants, the 30th anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to Development, and the process to select and appoint the next UN Secretary-General.

This HLTD will seek to achieve the following objectives:

• Reinforce the foundations needed for the enjoyment of human rights
• Identify how action to realize human rights can contribute to progress on peace and security and sustainable development and vice-versa
• Highlight ways to strengthen the United Nations' role and effectiveness in this area

The main areas of focus of the Thematic Debate will be:

• Combatting discrimination and inequalities;
• Strengthening governance, the rule of law and access to justice; and
• Enabling active participation in society.

Format:

This event will comprise an opening segment, a plenary debate, interactive segments on three areas of focus, and a moderated conversation with candidates for the position of UN Secretary-General.

Civil society speakers:

At the request of the Office of the President of the General Assembly (OPGA), the UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service (UN-NGLS) and theUN Department of Economic and Social Affairs NGO Branch (UN-DESA/NGOB) facilitated a process to identify two civil society speakersfor this event.

The President of the UN General Assembly has now selected the following two speakers through this process:

Opening Session

Ms. Agnes Leina Ntikaampi 

Illaramatak Community Concerns 

Kenya

Interactive segment on "Combatting discrimination and inequalities"

Ms. Diakhoumba Gassama 

Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Justice (RESURJ) 

Senegal

More information about the process is available here.

Several additional civil society speakers are participating in the programme, invited by the President of the General Assembly.

The concept note and provisional programme for this event are available here.

An informal briefing about this event will take place onWednesday, 29 June from 11:00am - 1:00pm in Conference Room 4 at UN Headquarters, chaired by the President of the GeneralAssembly's Chef de Cabinet, Ambassador Tomas Anker Christensen.