E/CN.4/2006/19 page 6 community and in a position to establish a sincere and frank dialogue with governmental authorities on those areas of concern. B. Thematic analysis and discussion: Measures to facilitate the participation of people of African descent in all political, economic, social and cultural aspects of society and in the advancement and economic development of their countries 20. The Chairperson introduced agenda item 6 by defining social exclusion as the inability of an individual to participate in the basic political, social and economic functioning of the society in which he or she lived. In order to identify strategies, policies, actions to overcome social exclusion and to foster integration and participation of people of African descent, it was important to identify and address the root causes of their social exclusion: their invisibility in official statistics; their status of poverty and disempowerment; their being victims of stigma and discrimination; and the multiple discrimination to which they are often exposed. The ingredients to foster effective measures to facilitate the participation of people of African descent in society could be broadly identified as establishing and/or reinforcing national human rights frameworks to address and remedy discrimination; addressing the multiple causes and consequences of exclusion though inclusive social and economic policies. The key elements of that approach included the necessity of comprehensive interventions which confronted the multiple aspects characterizing exclusion: disaggregating data by categories that defined the disempowered group; strengthening the organizational and advocacy capacity of the excluded group; designing anti-poverty interventions that sought to increase the economic assets of the excluded group and to change social practices, attitudes and beliefs towards it. 21. Mr. Frans expressed his deep concern about the recent housing fires in Paris. He voiced his worry about the housing conditions that led to the fires resulting in the unnecessary deaths of people of African descent - 27 deaths in April 2005, 17 deaths during the month of August, and seven deaths on 30 August. He recalled the Working Group’s recommendations on housing, adopted at its fourth session, and stressed that housing development should be an integrated part of poverty reduction and good governance strategies. Item 6 (a) Mainstreaming the situation of people of African descent in plans for achieving the Millennium Development Goals 22. In introducing item 6 (a) of the agenda, the Chairperson recalled that the World Conference against Racism took place one year after the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. These two important initiatives focused attention on the need to overcome poverty and to achieve development in the new millennium. He submitted that particular attention was to be given to cross-cutting issues such as non-discrimination, social inclusion and participation to ensure that their attainment was pursued through a rights-based approach and to guarantee that the needs and rights of people of African descent were respected in strategies to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. While each country was devising its own strategy to implement the Millennium Declaration and to achieve its goals, suggestions had been put forward in several forums that country reports on the Goals and processes take into account statistical information disaggregated by sex and ethnicity. As such, the situation of