24 May 2018
Thirty-two representatives from government ministries and departments, members of the UPR steering committee, independent commissions, traditional leaders, parliamentarians, civil society organisations, labour and business, diplomatic community, United Nations Country Team and permanent secretaries of ministries leading implementation of cluster recommendations met at Crowne Plaza in Harare for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) stakeholders consultative meeting.
The UPR is a human rights mechanism adopted by the United Nations (UN) to review the implementation of human rights in all the UN Member States once every four years. The UPR is a state driven process that provides the opportunity for each state to identify key human rights issues and challenges as well as to periodically declare what actions it has taken to improve human rights situations and fulfil human rights obligations.
Zimbabwe’s first review was contemplated in 2010 while the cycle started in 2011 and the final adoption of the recommendations was in March 2012. The second cycle began in November 2016 and it was completed on 26 March 2017. Zimbabwe was given 260 recommendations and out of these, 151 were accepted while 103 were noted. 6 recommendations were partially supported and regarded as not a priority by the government.
The meeting concurred that strategic priorities towards improved promotion, respect, protection and fulfilment of human rights in Zimbabwe should include prioritisation of National Plan Action, disseminating tools to allow stakeholders to track implementations of the recommendations, effective coordination between stakeholders in the implementation of the UPR recommendations to avoid duplication and address funding challenges, spreading reach of UPR consultations to include rural areas, organising of more technical informal meetings between quarterly meetings in order to take stock of implementation as well as broadening implementation of recommendations and interrogating those that were not accepted.
Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) pledged to include UPR recommendations in their workplan and also to encourage ministries to take part in implementing recommendations. The meeting noted that there is need to hold wide consultations in a bid to achieve total abolishment of the death penalty. It was also stated that there is need to speed up realignment of key legislations and prepare explanatory circulars. Other prominent issues that the workshop brought out were strengthening the fight against impunity, registering and licensing community radio stations to enhance engagement of the nation in UPR processes, allocating adequate resources from the national budget for the UPR and regular monitoring of the UPR by stakeholders.
The various stakeholders that were present resolved three next steps. The steps are forging better coordination mechanisms in implementing the UPR processes, continuous holding of periodic meetings and encouraging donours to support implementation of the UPR recommendations.
Human Rights NGO Forum, National Association of Non-Governmental Organisation (NANGO) and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human rights (ZLHR) will be facilitating capacity building workshops for civil society organisations and community based organisations on the universal periodic review. The workshops will be held in Gweru, Bulawayo, Masvingo and Mutare from Tuesday to Friday next week, respectively.
The objectives of the workshops are to capacitate CSOs and CBOs to participate in the monitoring and implementation of accepted recommendations, to develop partnerships that help in coordination of better compiling of shadow reports and to Come up with a framework of preparing a report for the next cycle.
