Local Government and Human Rights

Encourages local governments to ensure the participation of local stakeholders in local government activities and in public affairs, and an enabling, inclusive, accessible and safe environment for civil society participation, and to promote interaction and exchanges of knowledge with local stakeholders, including local civil society, in the formulation and implementation of local government programmes in efforts to promote and protect human rights at the local level;

Also encourages local governments, in cooperation with the national Government, to guarantee protection against discrimination and equal access to political participation at the local level, especially for women;

Encourages States to promote the engagement of local governments in the work of regional and international human rights mechanisms and in implementing relevant recommendations, including in the preparation of State submissions for the universal periodic review and in follow-up thereto, in reviews by the treaty bodies of States and in the work of the special procedures of the Human Rights Council, in particular during country visits;

Also encourages States to provide local governments with adequate financial resources and technical capacities to fulfil their human rights responsibilities;

Invites relevant United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, regional human rights mechanisms, national human rights institutions, civil society representatives and other stakeholders to cooperate with local governments to support them, including through capacity-building, in discharging their human rights responsibilities;

Requests the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to convene a one-day expert meeting, in a hybrid format and fully accessible to persons with disabilities, prior to the fifty-fourth session of the Human Rights Council, on enhancing capacity-building for local governments to incorporate human rights into all their work, as a basis for developing guidance tools on human rights education for local governments, and to submit a report thereon, reflecting the discussions held and identifying areas of priority or concern for consideration of further follow-up action, including in an accessible and easy-to-read format, to the Council at its fifty-sixth session;

Also requests the Office of the High Commissioner, when preparing the above-mentioned expert meeting and report, to seek input from experts from diverse geographic regions, including from States and local governments, relevant intergovernmental organizations, United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, including the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), and relevant special procedures, the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee, the treaty bodies, national human rights institutions and civil society representatives, including relevant local government networks and non-governmental organizations;

Invites the Office of the High Commissioner to continue to support local governments, upon request, in discharging their human rights responsibilities, including by providing guidance and capacity-building, and to continue research on local government and human rights, including on good practices, key challenges, and principles to guide local and national governments in the promotion of human rights;