UN Forum on Minority Issues Geneva, 12 – 13 November 2009 Statement by Amb. Strohal, Permanent Representative of Austria VII. Concrete steps to advance minority political participation and to build capacity of minorities to participate effectively Thank you, Mme President, First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to Ms. Gay McDougall, the Independent Expert, for organising this impressive gathering of minority experts and politicians from around the world. We are confident that the ideas and recommendations voiced at this forum will form a solid basis for further progress: on the legal conceptions as well as the practical implementation of minority rights, in particular with regard to their political participation. It will now be for the Independent Expert, the Human Rights Council and the OHCHR, as well as for national Governments and civil society actors to take these ideas further. I would like to highlight one aspect in particular that is a central element in virtually all aspects of minority participation: the knowledge of language. The challenge for minorities as well as states is to promote the use of the education in the minority languages and to provide the resources necessary for this. Illiteracy and language barriers are considered one of the main impediments to integration and effective participation. One focus should therefore be laid on specific educational programs to promote the minority languages as well as the knowledge of the national language to facilitate the integration process for national minorities and their political participation. In certain parts of Austria, for example, bi-lingual schools for Croatian, Slovenian and Hungarian, as well as language education for Roma, play a very positive role in helping