A/58/255 I. Introduction 1. The General Assembly, in its resolution 56/162, inter alia, called upon the Secretary-General to make available, at the request of Governments concerned, qualified expertise on minority issues, including the prevention and resolution of dispute, to assist in existing or potential situations involving minorities; called upon the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to promote, within his mandate, the implementation of the Declaration and to continue to engage in a dialogue with Governments for that purpose, and drew attention to the work of the Working Group on Minorities, as well as to continue efforts to improve the coordination and cooperation among United Nations programmes and agencies on activities related to the promotion and protection of the rights of the persons belonging to minorities and to take the work of relevant regional organizations active in the field of human rights into account in his endeavours; invited the High Commissioner to seek voluntary contributions to facilitate the effective participation, including through training seminars, in the work of the Working Group on Minorities of representatives of non-governmental organizations and persons belonging to minorities, in particular those from developing countries; and requested the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its fifty-eighth session on the implementation of the resolution, and to continue to include examples of good practices in the fields of education and of the effective participation of minorities in decision-making processes. The present report is submitted in compliance with that resolution. II. Qualified expertise on minority issues made available to Governments, at their request, including on the prevention and resolution of dispute 2. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has advanced the regional and subregional approaches, initiated in 2000, to reach out to minority communities and support national and regional activities for the promotion and protection of minority rights. Such initiatives have been designed to utilize better regional and subregional expertise on minority issues. The Working Group on Minorities and the Office of the High Commissioner organized three regional meetings, respectively, in Africa, Central America and Southeast Asia during 2002 (Gaborone, La Ceiba and Chiang Mai). The main purposes of these meetings were to identify priority issues in regions and subregions, raise awareness of the work of the Working Group on Minorities, the work of the Office of the High Commissioner and of international human rights and knowledge on how to use human rights mechanisms, and reach out to communities with a view to involving further minority representatives and grass-roots non-governmental organizations in the Working Group on Minorities and other Office of the High Commissioner-supported activities. These meetings have provided opportunities to regional and national minority experts to further cooperate with the United Nations for the protection and promotion of human rights. The work and role of regional mechanisms, including the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, its newly established Working Group on Indigenous Communities and the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, were highlighted, including for advancing further cooperation on minority issues with respect to conflict prevention in Africa. Regional mechanisms’ 3