 and I see more colleagues are joining and I believe it's time that we start, so as not to waste much of this pressure time. So good morning and afternoon, evening, colleagues, everybody who join us today for this webinar even on strategic engagement with the Human Rights Council. This is one of the webinars in our series, monthly series of webinars organized by the Global Protection Cluster Human Rights Engagement Task Team. So we have had in the past dedicated webinars to special procedures, to the Universal Periodic Review and other thematics. If you are interested to know more, we are happy to share with you the recordings as well. But today we will really focus on the Human Rights Council and more specifically how it is relevant for humanitarian actors. But before we start, I would like to ask actually Isaiah, my dear colleague, co-chair of the Human Rights Engagement Task Team, if he could just tell us in a nutshell what is this task team because not everybody may be familiar with it. So over to you, Isaiah, please. Thank you very much, Valerie, and good afternoon. Good morning and good evening, dear colleagues. So the task team on Human Rights Engagement is a task team of the Global Protection Cluster. We are a relatively new structure. We were established in May, 2020, and at the moment we have about 30 non-governmental organizations and UN agencies that are actively participating in the work of the task team. It is co-chaired by the UNHCR, so Valerie, who is the chair of the task team, I'm together with myself from the Lutheran World Federation and our colleague, Elisa, from Sokka Gakkai International. We have been working with NGOs and UN agencies that are dealing with many different issues and many different parts of the world, but on issues of human rights and then on issues of humanitarian action. So this has been sort of the unique nexus that our task team is managing. I wouldn't want to say much more, but it is important to just note that one of our key objectives as a task team is to use human rights tools to better protect the rights of people that have been affected by humanitarian crisis. And we are quite keen to work with and engage with existing human rights instruments and mechanisms, both internationally, regionally, and in some cases, nationally. We as a task team meet once every month, and so we would be very happy to tell you more information and maybe to receive you in our next meeting, which will happen in April. Back to you, Valerie. Thank you so much, Isaiah. And again, if somebody is interested to know more about the task team, we would be very happy to connect with you bilaterally. But for now, we will move to our today's event. So we will start, but before we start so that everybody feels comfortable, I would just like to mention as per usual practice in those webinars, if you can post your comments or examples, questions in the chat box, we will be constantly monitoring it and compiling your questions and come back to them after the brief presentations. And we really encourage you to take this event as an opportunity to brainstorm together, to exchange good practices. So the more active you are, the more we can get out of it, of course. I would ask everybody to remain on mute so that we can maximize the quality of the connection. And if you have any questions, also technical problems, please put it in the chat. We will be constantly monitoring that. Excellent. So with that, I think we are all ready. And today we have two distinguished panelists with us from the NGO world, which is fantastic. First of all, Paula Dahair, who is the Senior Global Advocacy Advisor in the Center for Reproductive Rights, who will be our first panelist, followed by Enzo, Enzo Tabet-Kruves, who is the Growth and Crisis Policy and Advocacy Officer in Plan International. So both of them have a wealth of experience on engagement with the Human Rights Council, and more specifically, how it is relevant for humanitarian actors. So I hope this will give us not only inspiration, examples, but also some ideas on how we could maybe have similar initiatives also within our organizations or within the cluster system. So without any further delay, I will give the floor to Paula. Paula, over to you, please. Thanks very much, Valerie. I'm just gonna share my screen so that everyone can see the presentation. I'm just, okay. I'm hoping that it's working now. Thank you, Azaya. So good afternoon, good morning, good evening, everyone. Many thanks to the Human Rights Engagement Task Team and to everyone who is joining us today. For those who don't know the Center for Reproductive Rights, maybe I'll start with a very quick introduction. So the Center is a legal advocacy organization that uses the law to further reproductive rights for all women and girls everywhere. And we have offices in New York, DC, Bogota, Geneva, Nairobi, and colleagues throughout Asia. And my role as Senior Global Advocacy Advisor based in the Geneva office is really to work at the level of human rights mechanisms and my main portfolio really is advocacy at the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms. So the Special Procedures and the UPR. And so today my presentation will really focus on how to kind of leverage the Human Rights Council and to make sure that the concerns and the priorities of women and girls at the local, national, and regional level are really elevated and amplified in this global body and how to really use it to make sure that whatever outcome of the Human Rights Council kind of goes back to women and girls themselves in order to create kind of a circle of accountability where they feed into the work of the council and then the work of the council can help them in their own advocacy. And to do that, I will use the case study of the Resolution 4529 on women and girls' full enjoyment of human rights in humanitarian situations. So just to give a brief overview, I'll go very quickly on the kind of technicalities. What is the Human Rights Council? What is it that we do as the center kind of using our example? And why it's important to be working in coalition and when I'm talking about coalition, it really is wide coalition. So human rights organizations, women's rights organizations but also humanitarian actors whenever relevant of course for their work. The action to date and kind of the genesis of the resolution and how it came about and then looking forward how we can work with this resolution, how we can kind of sustain it looking ahead. So first of all, what is it that we do at the Human Rights Council and what it is to start with? So the Human Rights Council is kind of the apex body. It's the highest kind of UN mechanism that we have that is being tasked to addressing and monitoring human rights situations. The council is made of 47 UN member states and it meets three times a year, usually in March, June and September, even though COVID has kind of changed that a little and it can also convene for special sessions whenever a certain situation in a given country for instance requires it or it has happened less for thematic issues but it can also be triggered for that. In terms of how we engage as the center for reproductive rights and kind of to give you kind of a very basic example on how we've been engaging at the Human Rights Council. So we engage first and foremost on advocacy on resolutions that are relevant to our work. And that is something that we do from our Geneva office but in close collaboration with our regional offices and with our partners in our focused countries. And we really try and ensure that first of all in terms of normative developments the highest human rights standards are reflected in resolutions of the Human Rights Council but also that the priorities that have been highlighted by our partners and regional offices are also being highlighted and discussed at the council. So there's the kind of the focus on the resolutions themselves in terms of amplifying the voices that are coming from the national and the regional level. We also engage quite a bit in terms of highlighting our work and amplifying our work through oral interventions that we can also present jointly with other organizations and also through the organization of site events which are also tools to outside of the work on the resolutions which is mainly kind of working very closely with states during their negotiations and being kind of providing technical support whenever is needed. Oral interventions and site events are also spaces for us to co-organize things with other organizations and with activists that are able to also engage at the council in order to also kind of amplify the work that we do at the national and regional level and amplify the voices of the movements that we are part of. So there's this work of amplifying there's this work around normative development and one of the like the last pillar around which our work is articulated it really is kind of monitoring and countering the opposition. And we work the Center for Productive Rights obviously it's all in the name. We really focus we're a human rights organization that focus on sexual and productive health and rights and it has been a trend for the past I would say six or seven years of course increasing the last four years and that we have seen a surge in attacks around women's rights in general gender equality in general and specifically on the issues that we work on. So we have seen a huge backlash in terms of access to contraception have seen a huge backlash in terms of access to abortion have seen a huge backlash just in terms of right to bodily autonomy for instance and certain issues that were not received as controversial a couple of years ago are now being up for debate and less debate may I say like gender discrimination for instance is becoming a term that is being discussed quite a bit. So there is this and all of that of course in all settings. So these conversations and these debate and this backlash also happened for women and girls in humanitarian situations regardless of the fact that our work has shown that women and girls still require these services when they're in these situations and the fact that they are being discussed and challenged obviously disproportionately impact women and girls who are being marginalized among them women on the move. So this is kind of what we do an overview of our work at the Human Rights Council and one question that we often encounter is why engage at the Human Rights Council? And we tend to wanna go beyond the very obvious first response that comes to mind which is oftentimes well if we're not in that space then we kind of leave the whole space to opposition organizations, anti-choice organizations to gongos which are NGOs that are that are kind of the mouthpieces of certain governments and so we need to be in this space. But going beyond that I think it's also important to highlight that despite this severe backlash that women's rights organizations have had to face we have managed to kind of make significant gains at the Human Rights Council in terms of normative development but also in terms of shaping the agenda itself and this has come mainly through our work within coalitions. Obviously there's very little that we can do just as a human rights organization if we were not working very closely across borders. So very closely with organizations that don't have a presence in Geneva and also very closely with our colleagues here who are also engaging physically when physically still had meaning I mean in Geneva. So engaging at the Council has enabled us to kind of craft and carve out a space for a discourse that is being shaped by women human rights defenders, by feminist activists and by women's rights advocates. And that space has enabled significant gains to be made and just to highlight just a few a couple of years ago I think around maybe 10 years ago preventable maternal mortality and morbidity was not considered a human rights issue. Now we have a standing agenda resolution on preventable maternal mortality and morbidity at the Human Rights Council which is a biannual resolution and that has looked through the years at maternal mortality and morbidity for instance in humanitarian settings that has looked at the issue, particular issue of morbidities as human rights concern and that is really enabling us to really centering the voices of women and girls in these conversations. And so this is in terms of looking at my slide how impactful are informal civil society coalitions. This example on maternal mortality for instance is the direct result of the advocacy of an informal coalition. And we will see through the course of the presentation that the resolution on the resolution on women's and girls' rights in humanitarian situations was also the result of the work of an informal coalition that got together women's rights organizations, child rights organizations, humanitarian service providers and general human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty for instance. We also work very closely with Care International. So it has been kind of a collective effort and so we'll also speak about that maybe a little in terms of how we've been working together to ensure that this resolution was being adopted at the council. So in terms of action to date and a bit of genesis of this resolution, how it came about, we kind of built on the momentum that was happening at the Human Rights Council around the issue of SRHR in humanitarian settings. So as I mentioned, we had a resolution on preventable maternal mortality and morbidity that really focused on this issue in humanitarian settings. We also had another resolution on child early enforced marriage in humanitarian settings. We had a resolution on rights of the child in humanitarian settings and finally a resolution on the rights of persons with disabilities in humanitarian settings. And we really noticed that there was appetite from states to really look at the particular intersections of forms of discrimination that happened in these settings that kind of further marginalized certain groups of persons but also kind of added barriers to access to sexual and productive health information and services, barriers to access to justice, barriers to accountability. At the same time, I should also mention that the center is working very closely with CARE on a pilot project in Northern Uganda where we're kind of looking at incorporating human rights principles in SRHR service delivery and talking with our partners in CARE and working with them on that project. We really saw that there was kind of a place that could be filled actually by intervention from the Human Rights Council in terms of ensuring what rights based accountability would mean for women and girls. Something that would come as a compliment to all the already existing accountability mechanisms that a lot of humanitarian service providers already have kind of in-house and have developed and also what international humanitarian law would give us then what is the role of international human rights law and what is the role of human rights bodies in terms of trying to ensure accountability for women and girls in these settings. So with that rationale in mind seeing the dynamics that were happening at the council, we really thought that the time was ripe to try and advocate for a resolution focusing on rights based accountability for women and girls in humanitarian situations at the Human Rights Council. And so we started building kind of an informal coalition of allies, as I mentioned that spans a very, we try to make it as diverse and inclusive as possible and really kind of working very closely with states. The core group, meaning the group of states that is leading on this resolution is cross-regional. It includes Canada, Uruguay, Sweden, Georgia and Fiji. And they're also a mix of major donor countries but also countries that are directly affected either by being a post-conflict or by being concerned by natural disasters, for instance. And so with that group of states work very closely with them. They drafted the first draft of the resolution and then we kind of engaged in the advocacy itself last September. We were, the dynamics surrounding this issue were interesting because first of all, it's kind of a new initiative at the council. And so that always kind of tends to stir up conversations. But then the very notion of accountability was also being discussed. As I mentioned, some concepts that are core to international human rights law that didn't used to be controversial all of a sudden become subject to conversations which we found quite interesting. But after kind of a long process of negotiations, the resolution was finally adopted by consensus. And it is important because it's the first resolution at the Human Rights Council that really looks at meaningfully considers women and girls' full participation in all areas that are relevant to them in the context of humanitarian situations. And it's the first resolution that just looks at the full realization of their rights in these specific situations from a human rights based perspective. It looks at the interlinkages between IHL and IHRL not in depth because it's a procedural resolution meaning that kind of it initiates the whole stream of work that needs to happen at the council. So it's just kind of we had one para on the interlinkages of IHL and IHRL but we also had one para on meaningful participation, access to services, kind of laying the ground for the work that is to come at the council. And it requests the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a report that should be presented at, now I'm blanking on the specifics at the 49th session of the Human Rights Council. And then we will have looking forward a substantive resolution that will kind of unpack all of these concepts. But now for now, ahead of us, we have a report that is really going to be instrumental in terms of fleshing out what it means, what broad space accountability means for women and girls in humanitarian situations. And so as I mentioned, in terms of the next steps, we'll have that report. I cannot stress enough how the perspective from humanitarian service providers will be in the realization and the writing and drafting of that report. OHCHR will share a call for submissions that we're happy to share. I'm happy to share with the task team when it comes. And I think that it would be crucial to highlight all of the already existing accountability mechanisms that exist out there and the lessons learned from these mechanisms and how can it be improved and what is the role of human rights in improving them and how can they be replicated and how can all stakeholders meaningfully engage with governments in order to kind of make mainstream these mechanisms in accordance, if I can put it this way, with governments' human rights obligations that continue to apply and to be applicable in humanitarian settings, whichever they might be. So the report will be highly useful. I also want to put it in parallel with a report that the working group on discrimination against women and girls will be presenting to the council this June, which is a report on SRHR in crisis. And I really think that with both these reports, normative development when it comes to that specific issue will kind of take leaps and bounds that have good hope. So I would highly again encourage you to send submissions to the OHCHR report. Center's event, we will have an event in June for the report on SRHR in crisis. We're happy to collaborate with whoever might be interested. I can also share my contacts for those who don't have it. And in 2022, we will have the substantive resolution that we really look at all the elements that form rights-based accountability and what are the relevant human rights standards that go with when we say safe, effective, full and meaningful participation of women and girls in humanitarian situations. What is it that we mean? How to ensure access to justice? How to look at justice beyond legal responsibility and criminal responsibility of perpetrators of sexual violence, which is where the discussion has been centered. So really kind of diving more deeply, but that's for 2022. And I think I'll stop there and I'm happy to take any comments. Thank you. Thank you so much, Paula, for this very comprehensive, I would say an inspiring overview of all the relative initiatives that the Center for Productive Rights has been conducting around human rights council and engagement with it. And with that, I would actually pass the floor directly to Enzo to share the experience of Plan International and compliment also Paula's presentation. Over to you, Enzo, please. Hi, Valerie. Thank you very much also for the invitation. I'm very happy to be here and presenting a bit of plan's work on the Human Rights Council and hopefully to bring some insights as well for all the participants as well, how they can engage in some of the conditions that also allow for that. So before I go on, I think it's important also to highlight just to explain a bit which perspective we're coming from. So a bit complimentary and a bit differently from what Paula was mentioning about the Center. We are an NGO who works more on the operational side. So we have programs in countries, humanitarian programings on all of the, most of the humanitarian crisis across the world, which brings a similar but as well a different lens and it comes also with different limitations and also with different enabling factors and how do we engage with the Human Rights Council? Just before also moving forward, I would just like to say that my role here in Geneva works mostly on the humanitarian policy side of things. So engaging, making sure that the perspectives of girls and young women are reflected within all of the global policy processes on the humanitarian side and particularly on the forced displacement issues but as well on some of the crisis specific countries we work with and that we have issues to raise on the global forests. So bringing basically an age gender and diversity lens to the whole humanitarian policy and of course now more recently to the human rights aspect of things which I'm gonna explain in a minute. So before moving forward, I just wanted to give a just pretty short presentation about planned international and who we are. So we are a development and humanitarian organization that we've mandated to advance students' rights and equality for girls. And we are active in 75 countries with 42 of them are affected by humanitarian crisis and our work on humanitarian crisis goes from the classic wash programings but also on child protection, education and gender equality and particularly looking at the participation of young girls affected by conflict in the different policy processes. Okay, so basically this is the main question, right? Why to bring humanitarian issues to the Human Rights Council? And then here I'm speaking about the perspective of the more humanitarian work. So first of all, it is an instrument for country accountability and protected crisis. I think we all know here that the majority of humanitarian crisis right now are long-term, which requires different solutions and different aspect of access to rights and services in countries, which becomes extremely important that we use the current mechanisms and the current ways to bring those accountability to practice. So I bring example basically to IDPs and refugees and also highlight the fact that we don't have any obvious forward to come for accountability for those populations on a global scale. So yeah, so I would like to highlight that within those instruments for country accountability, there are for example, the fact-finding missions and the commissions of inquiry, which are mandated to verify the situation of human rights in some of the countries. And that's one of the things why it's important to bring about the humanitarian aspects to those mandates and make sure that they are reflected on the report and on all the work. I'm gonna come back to this later. And the second is it is an effective global platform to bring attention to humanitarian crisis. And that's particularly on what they mentioned before about state's responsibility to uphold the rights of refugees in IDPs. And that's on areas that we are all familiar, which is about education, protection, access to health, and particularly also for refugees and in the recent developments within the global compact refugees wants to achieve as well. And now recently on the high level pan and IDPs, those access to services become even more important to bring about and to make sure that they are addressed. And that's why the Emirates Council, it's another good body to bring about the specificities of in our case of gross education, for example, for refugee gross education on the Emirates Council, but also on child protection and others. Then the third is that it complements traditional humanitarian advocacy, which most of you are used to in your daily work, which is basically about more focus on the coordination on the funny aspect of the crisis on the intrinsic qualities of response. So it brings basically a new perspective and it complements through a rights-based approach that enables new responses and new ways to complement what's the traditional humanitarian advocacy that we do works in practice. So now I'm gonna walk through some of the avenues we have used and it's important also to highlight that this work has been recent. So we have been engaging on this in the past three years, more or less, and really stepping up this year on the different initiatives. So the first of all, it's engagement with the Emirates Council resolutions. So what would be the goal of engaging on the humanitarian perspective on that? So basically, as Paula was mentioning, is to contribute to this long-term standard setting and framing of issues. So certain issues, for example, like the birth registration and this kind of things in humanitarian settings, where you need to consider a human rights issue before, but also to bring specific perspectives and framings of some of the traditionally human rights issue to bring more humanitarian perspective to those. And that we have the right of the child in humanitarian settings. We have also the child marriage, which was another resolution which brought about what are the kind of violations that young girls face on those humanitarian crisis. And the last one, which Paula has explained in details about the accountability for women in girls in humanitarian settings. So it's really about building this long, this framing and long-term standard setting for the issues happening on the humanitarian settings. The second of all, I'm not gonna focus too much on those because I'm aware that you also had a different webinar around engagement, special procedures, but nevertheless, it's important to highlight that it is an important space where you can bring emerging humanitarian issues on really specific themes. And for us, engagement with the special rapporteur and IDPs has been really a wonderful collaboration that it's really on its core and of the bandit to have this integration about the issues that happens with internally displaced people and bring them with a human rights angle and accountability angle. But there's also other special rapporteurs that we have equally used to bring about some of the issues we have been witnessing on some of the humanitarian crisis we work, sorry about the order. Yes, so then the first one and the other one which we would like to highlight and that's probably very interesting for you is that it's about the interactive dialogues and unconscious specific situations. And those are discussions at the Human Rights Council which are based on some of the accountability that I mentioned before, the accountability instruments like fact-finding missions, commissions or reports of independent experts around certain counter-specific situations that bring about what are the human rights situations happening in country. So for us, the two, we had two goals of engaging on those, first of all to analyze how global discussions were addressing the specific conflicts we were working on to gauge a bit the political dimension of some of the humanitarian crisis to better inform our own advocacy in country. So the second one is more an active role which is to raise issues that we witness on the humanitarian crisis there that are affecting our humanitarian programings pertaining to problems we face in the country offices that couldn't be raised otherwise at national level. So we had a recent example of car I'm not gonna walk through the content of it because it's confidential but it was, we basically brought about some of the concerns we witnessed in the country and that we couldn't otherwise raise it at the national level. And we brought it here with the hopes that can be elevated at the global level and bring about some of the discussions and perhaps influence the discussions in country as well. And then third, since we're talking about conscious specific situations that is the Universal Periodic Review which is the UPR, which I'm not gonna go into the detail here, but is also an appear-to-peer review instrument from the Human Rights Council that reviews the situations in certain countries but reviewed by other countries within the Human Rights Council. So that's also another point we have been engaging to bring about some of the conscious specific situations. And then finally, we also have been engaging on statements for the special representative of the Secretary Andrew Otrinnaman Conflict. And that's, it's a way to bring visibility specifically to the violations of the rights of girls in conflict. So the reintegration of two economic conflicts and other issues and basically to react and raise issues that we find that on her report are not being addressed or praise some of the issues that she has addressed that relates to our priorities in country. So finally, which kind of conditions we figure out that really facilitated our humanitarian engagement with the Human Rights Council. So first of all, our mandate is anchored in a really strong right space and humanitarian approach. So we have the, what we call the nexus approach, which is both humanitarian development but also adding the layer of human rights within it. Then second, it's working coalitions with peer organizations like the Center for Reproductive Rights, which allows us for a complementarity for bringing really a diversity of angles and mitigate a bit of the issues in relation the sensitivities that we have on some of the humanitarian crisis of bringing some of those issues to global fore that can affect our operations. Then third, we had really working close connection with the counteroffice through specific discussions of concern. So this is to say that we are doing a liaison role, which is really being based on the work we do in counteroffice and the specific discussion that happens there. Then the fourth is being able really to provide this piece of advice. So to really help to frame, engage, develop specific advocacy materials with the language that is mostly effective to the engagement of the human rights council, policy briefs. And then the last one, which is also linked to this last one is to help colleagues really to utilize this networks of NGOs and permanent missions that we have in Geneva for maximizing the impact of our advocacy. And again, to mitigate some of the risks that is inherent in bringing really sensitive information that are commonly happening on humanitarian crisis across the globe that we work. So I think that's from my side, that's it. So I'm happy to take any of your questions and thank you very much. Thank you so much, Enzo. And as you were speaking actually, there are some ideas that came to my mind how we can get inspiration from your examples and better engage with the human rights council. So I hope the same effect was also for colleagues. And I would encourage all of you who are listening today to us to really take this opportunity and post the questions. At the meantime, I will go back to Paola and Enzo with the questions we received through the registration forms for this event. And we start the exchange panel. So I will just put the questions out there and I'll let you decide, Paola and Enzo, how you divide the questions if okay for you. So the first one is what is the impact of engagement with human rights council? Can you already share some examples if you have seen how the engagement with human rights council has yielded some concrete impact on your organization's work, on your policy, on your projects. So this was one question. The second one, how can we know what are the themes coming up through the human rights council resolution? So how can we know what are the relevant humanitarian topics that will be put forward at the human rights council agenda and how we can then better plan for our engagement? And the third question that we have is, how do you involve field colleagues in those initiatives? Do you consult with them? Do you get their inputs or what is the connection between field and global? And then maybe I will stop here at this moment and give the floor back to Paola and Enzo to share some insight on those. Thank you, over to you. I can start, Enzo, if you want. Okay, I'll take the easiest to the last two questions because the impact question I think is one that we still ask ourselves every day. So how to know about the themes coming up at the council? So on the extra net, I can share all of that after. Maybe it can be circulated on the listserv but on the extra net of the human rights council, you have the calendar of thematic resolutions and so it's organized, it's resolutions that come that are annual, bi-annual, tri-annual and according to which sessions they're usually discussed at. Of course, that doesn't take into account the changes that can happen. So for instance, the preventable metanormatality and morbidity resolution was meant to be discussed last September, it will be discussed this June but the center is part of the task team and so you can also put out that question whenever is needed. But the calendar is kind of a good resource to go to and then the program of work that is published ahead of each session, you see what are the topics that will be discussed, what are the special procedures that we'll be presenting at this session. So you kind of get kind of the agenda for that particular session. How do we involve field colleagues? So as I mentioned, we work very closely with our regional offices and with our partners. I think that manifests more clearly when we engage on country situations. So the center, like particularly engages on thematic resolution that is kind of our bread and butter but we have been lately engaging a bit more on certain country resolutions like South Sudan, for instance, at some point we also engaged on the resolution on Myanmar and that came as a request from our colleagues in the regions and so how we involve them is basically a kind of, we have joined work plans with them. So at the beginning of each of our fiscal year when we're doing the planning, we kind of discuss what issues they want to elevate, what country situations they want to elevate and we work together on making sure that that happens. So I share what I know with regard to the work of the council, what is coming up, why is engaging on a certain resolution would be impactful, for instance, to give a very concrete example of the resolution on South Sudan is being discussed currently at this session of the Human Rights Council and we got together with other CSOs to ask for a renewal of the commission on human rights in South Sudan. Why? Because it's one of, I think the only accountability mechanism that is council mandated that has documentation of sexual and gender-based violence in built in their mandates. So that was particularly important to us and so I've worked with my colleagues in our Nairobi office who worked with their partners in South Sudan and so that's kind of why it's, I kind of try and explain why it would be important for us to be in these conversations and they also, it's an exchange basically. In terms of the impact of our engagement, if we have seen a concrete impact, we have actually, I think that, I mean, measuring impact in terms of human rights is always very difficult. It's kind of something that takes a long time to see how much and how impactful it has been. It can be as difficult to measure as human rights council resolution being used at the national level. So I remember, for instance, being myself from Lebanon when I was working there and being a feminist activist in that particular context, we used to utilize the outcomes of the human rights council and its mechanisms for our internal advocacy at the national level. And we did that in addition to doing a million other things but that was kind of one of our tool in our advocacy toolbox to try and change laws, to try and change policies and practice. So that can be something that we have seen happen over and over again. Whenever there is a movement at the national level that is pushing for legislative changes, whatever comes from the UN is useful. I think that, and so has mentioned the special procedures, whenever a special reporter publishes a public statement on a specific issue, it kind of adds to the different avenues for advocacy that you already have as a woman in a national or local context. In terms of the impact it has had in our organization, I think that the whole thinking, for instance, at the center, not the whole, but because we are also part of the interagency working group on reproductive health and crisis, for instance, but it's when OHCHR really started talking about the creation of a circle of accountability in the context of maternal mortality in humanitarian situations that it really kind of shifted our thinking. So that was a direct impact that came from the resolution that mandated OHCHR with the report, and that report, that concept was laid out, and it got us to think differently around, all right, so accountability with regards to women and girls in humanitarian situations has focused so far overwhelmingly on sexual and gender-based violence and on accountability as criminal responsibility, international criminal law, putting the spotlight on perpetrators rather than putting the spotlight on women and girls themselves who beyond this GBV also suffer gross violations of human rights law in these settings. And how do we manifest that reality? And what does it mean in terms of shifting our understanding of accountability? And so I think that that is, for me, one of the most concrete examples that I can give and how it kind of inspired the rest of our work. Thank you so much, Paola. Very comprehensive answer over to you and the please. Yes, yes, I would compliment some of the points, but I think I'll be mostly focusing on the first question on the impact on the other one on the field and global. I think that those are essential questions on the work that we do and especially sitting Geneva, this is a question that we have been seldom asked and it's a seldom difficult question to respond because there is this issue about measuring impact and particularly on advocacy that sometimes is really five years time frame at least to have for you to witness impacts and really showcase and prove. I think that this long-term impact can be easily defined by the fact that for example, issues like child marriage wasn't even considered a human rights violation six years ago and now they are and even consensus about human rights crisis and this kind of things. So there is a really clear and added value of this global discussion and framing and really bringing about the evolving situations. I think that's another impact that I can see from at least plans engagement and it's about the spotlight. It's really about bringing some of the information that otherwise wouldn't be able to be public in some of the countries, for example and amplify impact of things that are happening already on the control level. And that has been raised, for example, on our submission to how we are working now on accountability for IDPs for the high-level panel. Within the interviews we have done that have been consistently raised as one of the added value of having a global space to discuss issues on the rights of IDPs, for example, and is essential for accountability. Another impact that we have witnessed is I think is also information. So I think a lot of the countries, they have in-country capacity to do advocacy and they are always welcome to receive information and analysis on how the country they are working with, they have been addressing certain issues at the global level that they can use and really pressure them at the country level. So it's this kind of information which leads to the second point also is that it gives a basis for advocacy at country level. It's, we have witnessed several times that some of our countries like Columbia, for example, brings about some of the discussions and they incorporate that to their messages into their narrative and particularly that with UPR, for example, that they incorporate that it is like an accountability mechanism and they can use that and also use the country visit, for example, from some of the fact-finding missions to really raise some of the intrinsic dynamics of some of the conflicts. And then finally, I think that one of the biggest impacts and that's a subjective one is that quite a lot of our country colleagues has said that they feel that the issues have been heard because, for example, in the example of the Central African Republic, I told you, it's kind of a forgotten crisis and like globally speaking, even the humanitarian side, the funding has been decreasing, the spotlights on the humanitarian side has been really complicated to bring about and being able for letting some of the colleagues to bring about some of those issues to a higher forum that otherwise they couldn't raise at their national level really help them to feel that their issues have been addressed and they have kind of some avenues to maneuver. And of course, it all depends on the capacity of the country as well to engage and the capacity of the country to follow up and to bring that to the attention that's speaking about the current specific issues. So on the food and global, I think I've spoken a bit about that. I think that one of the factors of this relationship is to amplify really complicated information on the country level, really complicated issues that you can amplify using the global level and that's the human rights council is really effective to bring, specifically on a confidential way if you don't want to be mentioned or in a coalition, for example. Yeah, amplify local advocacy. And I think that's from global to local if I might say, we have also witnessed that this also brings back to the country kind of a stronger stance and a stronger fundament to their own advocacy. And that's not only of the human rights council but also other global processes like the global compacting refugees and others. We've witnessed that having this global perspective of what's the narrative and what's the line that the discussions that have been drawing the global level helps them to really incorporate and be more impactful on the local level. So I think that's some of the kind of relationships. Thank you so much for those very, very concrete examples to both of you. Again, a lot of ideas coming in. I'm just wondering if our colleagues from OHCHR who are online would like to add just very briefly some elements on the upcoming 2022 substantive resolutions and the involvement and give you the space if you would like, otherwise you can put it in the chat box as well. And I don't see you coming in. So I will proceed with the second round of comments complimenting from the registration form and also from Ivona, thank you so much for putting it in the chat box. So the first question, and again, I let you divide between you and respond as you have seen in the chat. Have there been discussions how the states actually define the humanitarian situation around the negotiation? So this is the first aspect. And the second question, humanitarian situations imply sometimes that the state powers may be disputed at national level with the involvement of non-state actors. So do you think that there is room for the resolution to recognize the accountability of non-state armed groups? Very good question. And I would add to this a third question that came. Do you have any lessons learned from your engagement with the Human Rights Council? Noting that it is quite recent as you explained last few years, but is there already some kind of lessons learned that you have started to see it that would also serve to other colleagues on the call further? So over to you. Thank you very much for these questions. So the first one around have states defined what humanitarian situations mean? Yes, I'm just gonna copy paste that para in the chat box so you have it that comes straight from the resolution. So the first time that it was discussed it was when we were discussing the resolution on child early and forced marriage in humanitarian situations. And at the time they had defined in its resolution 35, so C16, they had defined humanitarian settings as humanitarian emergency forces for displacement on conflicts, natural disasters. And then the sudden onset natural disasters and slow onset events was added in the resolution on accountability. And I think that was one of them, the very necessary addition. And this is why it was crucial to have a country like Fiji on the core group because there were the ones who really elevated this issue. So for the purpose of this resolution and the subsequent substantive resolutions that will come out, this is the definition of humanitarian situations. And in terms of the responsibility and accountability for violations perpetrated by non-armed groups, absolutely. And this is why it was also important to write up the bat really highlight the relationship between humanitarian law and human rights law because these questions are gonna come in. The center is preparing a technical paper on the interlinkages between international humanitarian law, human rights law and refugee law and it should be published in the next month or so and I will share the publication once it's out where we have looked at also, we also have looked at non-state actors. And as we know, it's kind of an ongoing debate in the field with really kind of led consultations to make sure that we get it right because it's not nothing is kind of set in stone but I think that it will be absolutely necessary that accountability for non-state actors and armed group but also, I'm also thinking about donors for instance, I'm also thinking about like a wide range of non-state actors who can perpetrate violations but also have a role to play in terms of accountability outside of perpetrating violations I mean as well. So I think that it would also be important to look at all the different stakeholders and the last question around lessons learned, I mean, one I think one that directly comes to mind for me is work at the Human Rights Council timing is everything. You know, we kind of really banked on the momentum that was existing around humanitarian situations at the council. It didn't come from nowhere. We kind of took an incremental approach but I have to say that the membership changes and so you can also find yourself where the council that might not be very favorable to bringing new initiatives, to bringing new initiatives on women. So I think that the first thing that I would say really is like timing and preparation are everything. Another lesson that I've learned is, you know, like expect the unexpected. We really struggled with seeing how the notion of accountability, which is kind of one of the major human rights principle, undermining, underpinning the whole human rights architecture became subject to debate when we were talking about this resolution. And we understood kind of the resistance from some states who thought that there would be a crude scrutiny over host countries, for example. So, you know, that was the argument that host countries are doing what they can. And now with this initiative, you want to add on scrutiny over what it is that we do and it's just us and what about other states. And so it created, even though these states themselves might sponsor or lead on other resolutions that literally have accountability in the title. And so that was, you know, we also needed to be prepared for these conversations, even though there were some somewhat unexpected. So I guess that would be preparation timing. And when we say preparation, it really is being prepared even for things that you didn't even factor in. Thank you, Paula, very well noted. Over to you, Enzo. Yes, I'm not going to elaborate much more what Paula has mentioned as she's kind of the, she's really the expert on this resolution. I think that, oh, sorry. I think I lost you. Yeah, you're right. So we're just saying that I'm going to elaborate too much on the questions because Paula is really the expert on this specific resolution. I would just like to also call attention to one of the things which are witnessed on the informal negotiation of this resolution is the backlash and how this was framed, really. I think that was true size, one that some of the states were really putting forward the field that having refugees, particularly in IDPs were kind of, they were already being really doing, was like kind of a really generous act, which yeah, I mean, it is, but also is also international obligation. And they also have an international obligation of respecting the human rights of this population. So it's kind of this really perspective that's not of those subjects as the rights holders, but really like kind of a population that happens to be there and that they're doing an effort. So it's really this need to strike the balance also between the accountability and the kind of support for accountability. Yeah, so this kind of dichotomy as well. But also, the kind of regular backlashes on what happens on women's rights as well, you know, about perspectives around all the independence of women and all the backlash against sector that they have rights empowerment. So taking this aside, of course, which is really a classic reaction from those kind of states. On the lessons learned, I will also compliment what Paul was saying that I think that one of the lessons learned in our case is that really having a staff or a colleague which was able to really advise and have access to networks and opportunities and helped also colleagues to navigate on the different channels, opportunities, and sometimes also bureaucracy about engaging on some of the human rights council processes really helped. And this also leads to another point which is kind of it requires thinking a bit outside of the box because my role is also eminently humanitarian, but it has this humanitarian components being built in it because it is an understanding that you can't have a really a full picture of humanitarian situations if you also don't integrate a rights-based approach. And that also led to really finding some solutions that are outside and under explored by really traditional humanitarian NGOs or action. Also talking about perspective from also working on other really humanitarian NGOs. And then I think that the last one, it's really about partnership of the country offices. I think that this is on the core of it. It's not to, it's really to explain as any good partnership, you really explain, you really build together with the country, the priorities, building within the country, the level of engagement, the kind of time, not only on the time that you spend on those kind of processes, but also on the added value because it's not clear. And given the power dynamic that Southern makes this between global and national, sometimes country offices feel compelled to engage because it's the global level that is asking. So reshaping this kind of relationship and making sure that this is equal that the country offices are present from the planning to the follow-up. It was really, really key to bring this kind of successful engagement on the human rights council. Yeah. Thank you so much, Enzo. And actually you somehow summarized also the objectives and goal of the human rights engagement task team really, that the fact that we cannot have the full picture in the humanitarian settings if we don't have the human rights angle and that we need to have it driven from the country, from the field going up to global. This is really at the core of what we are trying to achieve. Very good. Thank you so much, Paola and Enzo. I think we have no further comments from participants coming in. So I believe we are coming to the close of this event. I know that some colleagues they have been reaching through different means, WhatsApp, et cetera, would be interested to engage further in the 2022 substantive resolution. So Paola, maybe if you can also share the contact with colleagues who may not have it also. Enzo, if colleagues, if it's okay for you, would like to reach out bilaterally, but otherwise we invite you to also, if you are interested and curious about the work of the human rights engagement testing to reach out to Isaiah and myself and we would be happy to discuss with you how to take this forward and eventually how to support you in your country operation as needed through this process. So again, I would like to thank first of all our panelists, Paola and Enzo for sharing your practices, your experience, a lot of inspiring examples for us that we will need to digest process and maybe get inspired also for us going forward. And also colleagues to all of you joining us from all regions and mainly from the field as we could see, which is fantastic and stay tuned for our next webinar in April, which you will receive an invitation for very soon. So thank you everybody and have a great rest of the day. Bye. Thank you.