10 • Guidance Note of the Secretary-General on Racial Discrimination and Protection of Minorities
are particular to each minority community. Such preventive measures are
directly or indirectly related to the constructive management of diversity.
They may include a broad range of options that promote equality and nondiscrimination, participation and representation, respect for the rule of law
and fundamental human rights. UN activities should thus encourage local
stakeholders to support the constructive management of diversity as a tool
to prevent and mitigate identity-based tensions.
25. One of the ways in which this could be addressed is by promoting diversity
among UN staff, including through developing diversity action plans to recruit staff from minority communities and other staff with expertise on minority issues, access to communities and local languages. Staff with particular expertise on minority issues and languages can enrich the analysis
and improve the implementation of UN action in the area of development
and other key fields for minorities.
10. Cooperate with regional mechanisms
26. A number of regional organizations have designed norms, mechanisms
and programmes to combat racial discrimination and/or to advance protection of minorities, which are complementary with those developed by
the UN. In order to ensure the maximum combined impact, the UN system
should work closely with these organizations and, where appropriate, pursue joint initiatives to bolster work against racial discrimination and to promote minority rights. The relevance of regional experiences extends, inter
alia, to development programming, humanitarian assistance and conflict
prevention initiatives. For example, as the High-level Panel on Threats,
Challenges, and Change recommended, “the United Nations should build
on the experience of regional organizations in developing frameworks for
minority rights”.10
11. Enhance intercultural, inter-ethnic and interreligious
dialogue
27. Support for languages and other elements of identities of minorities is of
central importance to minority protection. This should, however, be done
in a manner that does not reinforce divisions within societies, but rather
enhances intercultural, inter-ethnic and interreligious dialogue. This can
imply, for example, that the UN system supports new communication channels between religious minorities and supports efforts encouraging the
majority to learn languages of minorities and vice versa in a manner that
fully respects the right of persons belonging to minorities to enjoy their
own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, or to use their own
language.
10
“A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility”, Report of the Secretary-General’s Highlevel Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, 2004.