HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL Forum on Minority Issues Second session Geneva, 12-13 November 2009 Room XX Palais des Nations Geneva, Switzerland Ojot Miru Ojulu 2006 OHCHR Minority Fe llow Anywaa Community, Gambe lla ojodmiru@yahoo.com Intervention for item (5) of the provisional agenda “National practices and real experiences: existing mechanisms providing for the political participation of minorities” Introduction As stated in the background document, eloquent constitutional provisions on minorities’ rights to political participation alone are proving to be inadequate to bring about meaningful participation of minorities groups. In fact, in most cases the problems that minorities are facing, rather than being with legal frameworks per se, they tend to be more with the application of the constitutional provisions and how to practically harmonize these provisions with other national interest driven policies. Moreover, in situations where for decades chronic inequalities have reigned and negative stereotypes towards minorities have been transferred from generation to generation, constitutional provisions alone do not suffice to guarantee minorities’ participation. In this regard, I would like to shade light on some of the key areas raised in the background document. Capacity Building Capacity building plays a vital role towards an effective political participation of minorities. Of course capacity building constitutes a broad range of issues. In this context, by capacity building I am simply referring to the human resource development of minority groups and organizational development of minority organizations. One of the major impediments to minorities-representatives’ effective participation is the lack of knowledge of both national and international human rights mechanisms pertinent to minority groups and the skills to articulate and voice the interests of their constituency in broader national political framework. Therefore, continuous short term trainings for minority representatives have to be given in the areas of international, regional and national human rights mechanisms, political advocacy and cross cutting development issues. On the other hand, minority organizations need to be equipped with knowledge and skills to provide trainings for their communities in their vernacular language where it is relevant. Most of the time, States sponsored