Nepali UPR stakeholders take stock of progress

On 5 April 2018, some 90 participants joined the National UPR follow-up meeting, co-organised by the NGO Coalition for the UPR in Nepal, National Human Rights Commission [NHRI], The Lutheran World Federation, FIAN Nepal and UPR Info, with the generous support of the Delegation of the European Union in Nepal. CSO representatives active on a diverse range of human rights issues, from both urban and rural parts of the county, joined the event together with officials from the Government, the National Human Rights Institution and UN agencies, all of which actively contributed to the agenda.

UPR Info lead the first session on good practices of how to develop an effective mid-term report and shared examples of productive multi-stakeholder cooperation in the follow-up phase. Particular emphasis was put on the need for the CSO mid-term report to reflect the rich diversity of the population of Nepal, and to leave no one behind in the national UPR process. The following day, civil society representatives presented the draft mid-term report to the diplomatic and donor community at a briefing session hosted by the EU Delegation. 

The workshop succeeded in:

• Providing a formal forum for discussions on implementation levels of 2nd cycle UPR recommendations made to Nepal;
• Bringing together representatives from the Government, civil society, National Human Rights Commission, UN agencies, media and other stakeholders to share information and reinvigorate the UPR process in Nepal; 
• Collecting feedback to the report from stakeholders which previously had not been consulted; 
• Sharing good practices related to the methodology, structure and publishing of UPR mid-term reports;
• Sharing good practices on how to contribute to effective implementation of human rights recommendations, including information on key components of a National Mechanism for Reporting and Follow-up; and
• Informing media about how they can engage with the UPR and sharing preliminary findings from the CSO mid-term report, thus involving them in the national UPR process.

The event was the third step in a series of UPR activities undertaken by UPR Info and its partner organisations in Nepal under the umbrella of the In-country Programme. For more information, the full activity report is available here.