Summary

This is a summary of the report of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent on its nineteenth and twentieth sessions, prepared pursuant to Council resolutions 9/14, 18/28 and 27/25.

During its nineteenth session, held in Geneva from 28 November to 2 December 2016, the Working Group held private discussions. Its twentieth session, held in Geneva from 3 to 7 April 2017, focused on the theme “Leaving no one behind: people of African descent and the Sustainable Development Goals”.

The Working Group concluded that the Sustainable Development Goals provide a comprehensive framework to effectively combat the racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, Afrophobia and related intolerance that people of African descent face every day around the world.

It urged Member States to make a genuine commitment to the standard of leaving no one behind by, inter alia, collecting disaggregated data and devoting special attention to the human rights of people of African descent through the preparation of specific programmes of action, including social programmes for the implementation of the programme of activities for International Decade for People of African Descent.