A/HRC/19/56 31. Women belonging to minorities frequently experience unique challenges and multiple or intersecting forms of discrimination emanating from their status as members of minorities and as women or girls. This may make minority women and girls particularly vulnerable to human rights violations and the denial of their rights in both public and private life. In conformity with the requirements of her mandate, the independent expert will seek to engage with minority women and consult them on their issues and concerns in all aspects of her work, including during country visits and in her communications to specific States. 32. The independent expert emphasizes that the fourth session of the Forum on Minority Issues held in November 2011, was dedicated to “guaranteeing the rights of minority women and girls” (see Section VI below) and produced a series of concrete recommendations to protect the rights of minority girls and women (A/HRC/19/71). The independent expert considers that these recommendations provide an essential resource and tool, produced through an inclusive process involving key stakeholders, including States and minority women themselves. In this regard she will focus attention on activities and initiatives to promote awareness and implementation of these recommendations in every region and seek opportunities to assist States and civil society in their efforts to operationalize the recommendations. E. Achieving the Millennium Development Goals for disadvantaged minorities 33. The Declaration on Minorities states in article 4 that “States should consider appropriate measures so that persons belonging to minorities may participate fully in the economic progress and development in their country”. Nevertheless some disadvantaged minority groups in all regions continue to face high and disproportionate levels of poverty and face discrimination and marginalization that impacts on their rights and opportunities in all fields of life, including their education, access to employment and participation in economic life, their access to adequate housing, health and service provision. 34. The independent expert considers the work undertaken by the mandate to highlight the situation of minorities in the context of the Millennium Development Goals3 to be highly important as the international community approaches the 2015 deadline for achieving the Goals. She considers that efforts by States to ensure that the Goals are met for the poorest and most disadvantaged communities, frequently including minority groups, should be intensified including via interventions targeted at particular minority communities. Millions of persons belonging to minorities globally, including, for example, people of African descent, Roma, Dalits and others, are at risk of being left behind by initiatives that fail to benefit them due to discrimination, lack of adequate attention to their unique circumstances of poverty, or neglect. 35. Minority communities frequently experience discrimination and exclusion which leave them in situations of poverty and which require targeted solutions. The independent expert encourages States to recognize that one-size-fits-all solutions to achieve the MDGs will often not be effective for minorities who are frequently the poorest of the poor, who may live in remote or isolated localities and who may experience widespread discrimination in society resulting in entrenched exclusion and poverty. She will urge States to give specific attention to minority groups in the context of their efforts to achieve the Goals, to conduct rigorous needs assessments as well as research into the impact of 3 10 See Human Rights Council Report (A/HRC/4/9), section I, Minorities, Poverty and the Millennium Development Goals: Assessing Global Issues.