Guidance Note of the Secretary-General on Racial Discrimination and Protection of Minorities  •  1 Summary The present Note provides guidance for the UN system on how to address racial discrimination and protection of minorities. It makes the following 19 recommendations to ensure comprehensive and coherent action: 1. Integrate anti-discrimination and minority rights into the work of the UN system at global, regional and country level, including through coordination mechanisms 2. Pursue a human rights–based approach in all UN activities 3. Apply a gender perspective in all analysis and actions and address multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination 4. Promote diversity among UN staff, including through diversity action plans 5. Conduct human rights training initiatives for UN staff and others to build knowledge on racial discrimination and protection of minorities and ensure that relevant UN training materials address these issues 6. Focus on the minorities that are economically, politically and/or socially most marginalized and whose rights are particularly at risk 7. Build wide local ownership through proactive, constructive and early dialogue that includes minorities in areas ranging from development efforts and humanitarian assistance to peacekeeping and peacebuilding 8. Pursue evidence-based actions and policies in fields ranging from conflict prevention to development, including through mapping of different dimensions of exclusion and by supporting data collection related to minorities, including in population censuses 9. Conduct outreach campaigns and capacity-building activities to promote the rights of persons belonging to minorities and strengthen advocacy against racial discrimination 10. Engage and cooperate with UN and regional human rights mechanisms dealing with racial discrimination and minority rights, including by supporting follow-up to recommendations and by facilitating participation of minorities in these processes 11. Combat institutional racism and systemic discrimination by supporting reforms that advance minority participation and full equality in law enforcement, employment and other key fields 12. Encourage constructive management of diversity to address identitybased tensions, including culturally attuned preventive measures focusing on the most important risk factors 13. Support efforts to protect languages and other elements of identities of minorities in a manner that enables intercultural, inter-ethnic and interreligious dialogue 14. Support the inclusion of strong anti-discrimination and other minority rights guarantees in constitutions and other legislation as well as effective mechanisms for their implementation