A/HRC/15/37 January 2010, convened by the United Nations Development Programme and the Office of the High Commissioner. 8. As part of the coordination efforts, meetings were held, parallel to the sessions of the Permanent Forum and the Expert Mechanism, with representatives of indigenous peoples and organizations, which gave them an opportunity to inform the Special Rapporteur about the specific situations in their respective countries. Those meetings took place during the ninth session of the Permanent Forum, in April 2010, and the third session of the Expert Mechanism, in July 2010. At those sessions, the Special Rapporteur also had the opportunity to meet with representatives of States and of United Nations bodies to address matters relating to his mandate. 9. In the regional sphere, the Special Rapporteur met in 2010 with members of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to discuss various forms of coordination and cooperation on aspects relating to his mandate. Similarly, in June 2010, he participated in a seminar, organized by the secretariat of the Inter-American Commission, on training North American indigenous leaders in the area of international and inter-American human rights mechanisms. B. Areas of work 10. In conjunction with his efforts to cooperate with other international mechanisms, the Special Rapporteur has continued to carry out work in four principal areas: promoting good practices; thematic studies; country reports; and communications relating to alleged human rights violations. 1. Promoting good practices 11. Pursuant to the mandate entrusted to him by the Human Rights Council to “identify ... and promote best practices”,2 the Special Rapporteur has continued to promote legal, administrative and programmatic reforms at the domestic level to give effect to the standards of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and other relevant international instruments. 12. The Special Rapporteur has on occasion undertaken these promotion activities at the request of Governments which have asked him to provide technical assistance for domestic law reform. For example, the Government of Ecuador invited the Special Rapporteur to visit the country in December 2009 to provide technical assistance in the drafting of new legislation aimed at harmonizing indigenous and ordinary jurisdictions. That visit also provided an opportunity to follow up the visit that the Special Rapporteur had made to the country the previous year, as a result of which he had submitted a series of observations on the constitutional reform process that had then been taking place in the country.3 In the wake of his follow-up activities, the Special Rapporteur prepared a report which contained additional observations and recommendations to the Government.4 13. Among the Special Rapporteur’s efforts to promote good practices was his dialogue with the Governments of States which, in 2007, had not voted in favour of the adoption by the General Assembly of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In that regard, the Special Rapporteur notes with satisfaction that the Government 2 3 4 4 Ibid., para. 1 (a). A/HRC/9/9/Add.1, Annex 1. A/HRC/15/37/Add.7. GE.10-15075