I wish to extend also a warm welcome to the distinguished panellists and moderators, who have kindly accepted to come to Geneva and to share with all of us their expertise, to provide food for reflection and discussion on the importance of inclusive, multilingual and intercultural education, and to shed light on specific policies and initiatives that promote and ensure access to mother-tongue education by persons belonging to minorities. Minorities around the world today face persisting significant challenges in accessing quality education and in particular education that contributes to the preservation of their language and identity. Specific conceptions of national unity and societal cohesion and security have created the space for the dominance of one language and culture over the others and put obstacles to preservation, use, further development of minority languages and cultures. In 2008, the inaugural session of the Forum on Minority Issues addressed for the first time the right to education and minorities and recommended that States provide adequate opportunities to persons belonging to minorities to learn their mother tongue or to learn through the medium of the mother tongue, and such opportunities be chosen in consultation with them. Other recommendations highlighted the importance of enhancing the availability of teachers and of teaching materials in minority languages. This year’s Forum is an opportunity to further build on these discussions, to share good practices and to delve upon the challenges in the promotion and development of minority language education, in the context of the global rise of hate speech and violence targeting the “other”, the “foreigner”, the most vulnerable. The Human Rights Council has highlighted in many occasions, including through its resolutions and other activities, the importance of education in promoting inclusive and tolerant societies, which ultimately leads to the realization of all human rights. The latest Human Rights Council resolution on the right to education 41/16 of July 2019 reaffirmed the universal relevance of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the importance of ensuring the effective implementation of Goal 4. It called on States to take all necessary measures, including sufficient budgetary allocations, to ensure accessible, inclusive, equitable and nondiscriminatory quality education and to promote learning opportunities for all, and to strengthen engagement with all relevant stakeholders, including communities, local actors and civil society in this regard.