The 4 Key Capacities of the National Mechanism for Reporting and Follow-Up

The Ministry of Justice, in collaboration with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, organized a 2-day training on ‘The 4 Key Capacities of the National Mechanism for Reporting and Follow-Up (NMRF)’ at Hennessy Park Hotel. Maneesh Gobin participated at the opening ceremony.

He reminded the participants from various ministries, departments, the civil society and NGOs of the structure and importance of the NMRF. “There is no such other platform where members of the civil society, NGOs and ministries come together to share their experiences and come up with recommendations and policies. We were not up to date with reporting in the country. Now we are”, he said. He further stressed that it is imperative, once the platform is set up, that its members be trained so they are fully aware of their roles and help in implementation.

“At the last Universal Periodic Review (UPR) cycle exercise, we were given 176 recommendations. About 75% of these were accepted. The challenge is to implement them and another one is to explain why we are not able to implement. Maybe we do not have the capacity”, added the Attorney General.

Which explains the series of training which is being organized, since April, for the members of the NMRF. The previous one was held on the 4th of May for the intention of Supervising Officers and Permanent Secretaries of various Ministries. “We have identified in some institutions that there was a lack of commitment from the high level. We therefore organized this particular training session. The next step is to make use of technology, through the National Recommendations Tracking Database (NRTD). If there is no tracking, how do you remember which recommendations have been implemented, and which are left?”

The NRTD is a database that facilitates the recording, tracking and reporting on the implementation of human rights recommendations from international, regional and national human rights mechanisms at the national level.

“Mauritius has made an excellent progress in terms of reporting to human rights mechanisms. It is up to date with its reporting obligations under seven core human rights treaties. However, implementation of the recommendations remains a major challenge. It is our hope that this training will help Mauritius to address this challenge – through strengthening key capacities of its National Mechanism of Reporting and Follow Up and through rolling out the National Recommendations Tracking Database. The NRTD should serve as the information management tool to track human rights recommendations and progress in their implementation. It is not a magical solution to replace current processes and plans. It is a tool which should fit into the existing workflows and improve them”, said Ms Ivana Machonova Schellongova, Human Rights Officer at the OHCHR in Geneva.

She affirmed that Mauritius will be the second country worldwide and the first country in Africa to roll-out the database.

“We hope the NMRF and the NRTD will contribute to synergies among all mechanisms of human rights protection – international, regional and national – as well as voluntary national reporting under Sustainable Development Goal – to ultimately reinforce promotion and protection of human rights in Mauritius”, she concluded.

The next workshop scheduled on the 23rd and 24th of May will help the participants familiarize with the National Recommendations Tracking Database.