A/HRC/16/45 strengthening programme guidance on minority issues, improving knowledge sharing, and promoting cooperation with international mechanisms and other partners. 18. A comprehensive stock-take of UNICEF activities, undertaken in 2009, revealed the organization’s active involvement in initiatives bringing real benefits to ethnic, religious, and linguistic minority communities. It 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. UNICEF intends to make the development of this strategy a primary focus in 2011. On 15 December 2010, UNICEF and Minority Rights Group International jointly hosted a side event during the third session of the Forum on Minority Issues. Chaired by the independent expert, the event provided an opportunity to share the involvement of UNICEF in minority issues globally, and present county-specific case studies. D. Activities to promote minority issues in the context of the Millennium Development Goals 19. The independent expert has continued her work to increase attention to minority issues in the context of the Millennium Development Goals. Studies, including a report by the independent expert in 2007 (A/HRC/4/9), have demonstrated that minorities are frequently failing to benefit from national strategies to achieve the Goals, which do not take into account the unique situations of and the impact of discrimination on minorities. In adopting the United Nations Millennium Declaration, Heads of State and Government have recognized their “collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity at the global level” (para. 2) and resolved to strengthen their capacity “to implement the principles and practices of democracy and respect for human rights, including minority rights” (para. 25). 20. On 22 and 23 March 2010, the independent expert participated with numerous leading scholars and practitioners as a keynote speaker in the International Symposium on Millennium Development Goals and Human Rights at Harvard Law School. The independent expert participated in the High-level Plenary Meeting of the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals held from 20 to 22 September 2010 in New York. In addition, the independent expert participated in an informal event on the Goals held on 22 October, organized by OHCHR to coincide with the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly. 21. On 17 September 2010, the independent expert joined 25 other special procedures mandate holders in issuing a public statement prior to the High-level Plenary Meeting, urging Heads of State to give much greater attention to human rights issues in their efforts to reduce poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Member States were called upon to implement the outcome document3 and recommendations with a stronger focus on human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities, to ensure the achievement of the Goals, and to also make them meaningful for the billions of people who need them most. 22. In the context of the third session of the Forum on Minority Issues, held in December 2010, the independent expert highlighted that the realization of the right of minorities to effective participation in economic life is central to the achievement of the Goals and ensured that attention to this issue was a core component of the Forum 3 See General Assembly resolution 65/1. 7