A/HRC/45/44 facts and circumstances relating to systemic racism, alleged violations of international human rights law and abuses against Africans and people of African descent.8 10. Pursuant to the midterm review of the International Decade for People of African Descent and in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Working Group issued two calls for submissions. The Working Group thanks all those who sent submissions.9 The input was extremely useful to the Working Group when preparing the present report, and will also be used for the twenty-sixth session and in its next report. 11. On 9 December 2019, the Working Group, together with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Permanent Missions of Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago and the Mission of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States organized a special high-level event at the United Nations Office at Geneva with the theme “Ensuring recognition, justice and development”, to raise awareness of, to allow for an exchange of views on, and to galvanize support among Member States, civil society organizations and the general public for the International Decade for People of African Descent and a United Nations declaration on the promotion and full respect of the human rights of people of African descent. 12. In addition, on 11 and 12 February 2020, a member of the Working Group, Sabelo Gumedze, delivered guest lectures on the theme “People of African descent and human rights” at the University of San Martin in Argentina. The Vice-Chair, Dominique Day, participated in several events, including on 19 September 2019 in Nova Scotia, Canada, for the launch of the Nova Scotia action plan for the International Decade for People of African Descent. Since March 2020 following the introduction of COVID-19-related travel restrictions, she has participated in a number of virtual events, including in a seminar held in Brazil on the theme “Post-pandemic horizons”, organized by GIFE, an association of Brazilian social stakeholders; and various panel discussions organized by Afro-Resistance, International Human Rights and Business, the Perry World House (University of Pennsylvania), the World Council of Churches, Law at the Margins, the International Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers, the Sexual Rights Initiative, the US Human Rights Network and OHCHR. On 25 July, Ms. Day also recorded a statement for the International Day for Afro-Latino, Afro-Caribbean and Diaspora Women. Members Ahmed Reid and Ms. Day participated in the Nairobi Summit marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development. Mr. Reid delivered a presentation at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) expert virtual meeting, held from 13 to 18 May 2020, on the theme “Education as a tool for prevention: addressing and countering hate speech”, and during the United Nations Population Fund global conversation series on the theme “Once again – we shall overcome: COVID-19 and people of African descent”, on 23 July 2020. III. COVID-19, systemic racism and global protests: testing the integrity of the human rights framework 13. In 1951, an American poet of African descent, Langston Hughes, wrote a poem entitled “Harlem”, in which he asked “what happens to a dream deferred?”. He asked whose rights and freedoms were prioritized, even at the founding of the United Nations and the establishment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In an era of peace, fortune and dream-building, Hughes noted that deferred dreams were the true content of protests, uprisings and resistance. The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare racial disparity and discrimination in institutions designed to confer justice, equity and redress, posing even more loudly the question of whether these institutions, including law enforcement, operate consistently with, or contrary to, their design. In many ways, for people of African descent, the human rights framework remains a promise unfulfilled, a dream deferred. 8 9 4 https://ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25977&LangID=E. The Working Group received six submissions on the midterm review of the International Decade (five from civil society organizations and one from the Canadian Commission for UNESCO). It received 42 on the COVID-19 pandemic.