E/CN.4/2003/24 page 7 B. Participation in the seminar of experts for the African region on the implementation of the Durban Programme of Action 6. At the invitation of the Office of the High Commissioner, the Special Rapporteur participated in the seminar of experts for the African region held at Nairobi from 16 to 18 September on follow-up to the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. The Special Rapporteur’s contribution to the seminar focused on the measures that could be taken to combat discrimination against non-citizens, including migrants and refugees. With a view to combating the exclusion to which non-citizens often fall victim at the hands of the population of the host country, the Special Rapporteur proposed, in particular, that the competent authorities in each country should encourage fraternization between citizens and non-citizens and promote interaction between cultures, civilizations and spiritual traditions. This could be achieved, inter alia, through education, information, recognition of pluralism and the promotion of intercultural dialogue. In the final analysis, it was a question of expressing in the national context the value of unity in diversity and of recognizing specificities while promoting the common values that transcend them, in keeping with the theme of the seminar: “Implementation of the Durban Programme of Action: an exchange of ideas on how to move forward”. 7. It emerged from the seminar that African States accord priority importance to the implementation of paragraphs 157 and 158 of the Durban Programme of Action (A/CONF.189/12), which are viewed as holding the key to breaking the centuries-old cycle of oppression, exploitation, injustice and poverty and to paving the way for good governance. The Commission should give urgent attention to this essential point of the recommendations emanating from the Nairobi seminar in order to ensure effective follow-up to the Durban Conference. C. Participation in the work of the General Assembly at its fifty-seventh session 8. From 21 to 25 October 2002 the Special Rapporteur took part in the work of the General Assembly at its fifty-seventh session, making a presentation to the Third Committee on his approach to his mandate. He emphasized the fact that combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance required, in keeping with the spirit and the letter of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, a determination to pursue and address not only legal and political responses, but also the ideological, cultural and psychological foundations, processes and mechanisms which contributed to the perpetuation and resurgence of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance in order to find solutions that go to the root of those scourges. 9. Globalization takes the following forms: cultural homogenization arising from the logic of a global market that ignores cultural identities and national specificities and triggers, by way of a reaction, the tendency to retreat into a core identity; the predominance of the materialistic values of consumption and competition; and the erosion of cultural and spiritual values. Discrimination is nourished, grows, spreads and even becomes commonplace in this setting. It is in the cultural domain that misperceptions and negative images of others are constructed and find their justification and deepest expression. Cultural prejudice, the corollary of ethnocentricism an essentially ideological construct aimed at justifying discrimination and domination - explicitly