and common forms have been in the field of education, where inter-culturalism and bilingual education have been the focus, and in the field of health, where special efforts are being made to target children with services in hard to reach areas. The assessment report recognized, however, the absence of an overall policy for guidance to country offices on minorities programme formulation and recommended the design of such a framework for the consolidation and improvement of future work on minorities. The agency organized a consultation on indigenous peoples’ and minorities’ issues in April 2009, in which I participated, as a major step towards providing a broad and interactive orientation into issues affecting minorities and minority children in particular. Senior UNICEF managers, practitioners, and external experts had the objective of identifying a policy framework and ways of strengthening programme guidance on minority issues, improving knowledge sharing, and promoting cooperation with international mechanisms and other partners. Perhaps the most innovative approach to using and seeking implementation of the Declaration was the creation of the Forum on Minority Issues. The Forum has quickly become an extremely important opportunity to increase knowledge of the Declaration around the world, grow the constituency for implementation of the Declaration, amplify the voices of minority communities and to refine the UN’s understanding of the issues facing those communities and the solutions they prioritize. It was my privilege to guide the work of the Forum for three years in its focus on education, political participation and economic inclusion. It was a unique opportunity for a wide variety of stakeholders to come together to exchange views, experiences, good practices and to strategize together regarding how to ensure that minorities enjoy all their rights. The lively participation of minorities from all regions has been an important reminder of the exceptional wealth of expertise in minority communities, while at the same time highlighting the importance of support for minority groups and organisations--particularly at the grass roots level. 7