A/HRC/36/60 38. Sandra Del Pino, of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO), described the work of PAHO on the health situation of people of African descent in the Latin American and Caribbean region, including achievements, challenges and opportunities. Despite advances in the inclusion of self-identification variables in population and housing censuses, lack of quantitative and qualitative data remained a major barrier to understanding the health situations of people of African descent in the region, including the determinants. Such data were needed to formulate adequate responses and ensure accountability. In addition to structural racial discrimination, people of African descent faced other social determinants of health such as lower educational attainment, lack of access to education and lack of health infrastructure in the areas where they lived, among others, which placed the Afro-descendant population of the region at a disadvantage. PAHO had identified four key areas to address the determinants of health — gender, equity, human rights and ethnicity — in order to reduce the inequities in health, and had adopted a regional plan of action to address inequalities in health aimed at people of African descent. 39. During the interactive session Ms. Fanon Mendes-France emphasized the need to analyse how the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans had continued to affect the overall health of people of African descent. The right to health of people of African descent was directly related to the right to their traditional lands, which had been expropriated and contaminated by multinational companies; that in turn had exposed them to health hazards. At the same time, urban gentrification of areas where people of African descent lived also had an adverse impact on their overall health and well-being. A representative of civil society highlighted the importance of access to alternative, traditional and complementary medicine that was prevalent in Africa. 40. A special panel was held on the International Decade for People of African Descent. Ms. Fanon Mendes-France mentioned that while the Decade was an important achievement, it was already in its third year and therefore there was a need to move towards undertaking major efforts to fundamentally challenge structural racial discrimination, including by organizing an annual forum for people of African descent that would serve as a bridge between States and civil society and enhance support to and the visibility of the Decade by mobilizing funding. 41. Yvette Stevens, Chair of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, outlined the work of the Working Group and stated that despite efforts to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, enormous challenges remained in combating xenophobic attitudes, hate speech and crimes which were on the rise, severely affecting the enjoyment of their human rights by various groups, including people of African descent. She reported on the progress achieved on the establishment of a forum for people of African descent, and called for States and civil society to work together in ensuring that the forum yielded the positive results that everyone sought. 42. Taonga Mushayavanhu, Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Human Rights Council on the Elaboration of Complementary Standards to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, presented the work of the Committee in addressing the elaboration of complementary standards in the form of either a convention or additional protocol(s) to the Convention, filling the existing gaps in the Convention and providing new normative standards aimed at combating all forms of contemporary racism, including incitement to racial and religious hatred. Despite challenges in the development of complementary standards, the General Assembly had now called upon the Ad Hoc Committee to ensure the commencement of negotiations on the draft additional protocol to the Convention criminalizing acts of racist and xenophobic nature. 43. Michael McEachrane, representing a number of civil society activists and organizations in Sweden and Europe, recommended that the Working Group develop guidelines and other written materials for addressing enslavement and colonialism and their continuation in structural racial discrimination and inequities facing Africans and peoples of African descent worldwide. He also called for an increased focus on areas of reparatory justice, public education on the histories and present-day legacies of colonialism and 11