A/71/301 I. Activities of the Special Rapporteur 1. The present report is submitted pursuant to General Assembly resolutions 68/151 and 70/140. A. Country visits 2. The Special Rapporteur expresses his gratitude to the Government of Argentina for the cooperation extended to him during his visit to the country from 16 to 23 May 2016, and to the Governments of Australia and Fiji, which have accepted his visits scheduled from 28 November to 5 December and from 7 to 12 December 2016, respectively. 3. The Special Rapporteur would like to thank the Government of Morocco for inviting him to visit the country, and hopes to honour this invitation in 2017. He also hopes to receive a positive reply to his requests to visit India, Japan, South Africa, Thailand and the United States of America before the end of his mandate. B. Other activities 4. The activities of the Special Rapporteur between July 2015 and March 2016 are reflected in his report to the Human Rights Council at its thirty -second session (A/HRC/32/49 and Corr.1). After March 2016, the Special Rapporteur partici pated in the high-level thematic debate convened by the President of the General Assembly on 12 and 13 July in New York. II. The role of national specialized bodies and national action plans in preventing and combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance A. Introduction 5. The current mandate holder and his predecessors have noted in their various thematic and country visit reports 1 the importance and value of putting in place national plans of action and national specialized bodies for equality, which can play a fundamental role in addressing the root causes of and shaping policies aimed at combating discrimination, racism and xenophobia. 6. In the present report, the Special Rapporteur further elaborates on the important role played by national specialized bodies (or “equality bodies”) and national action plans in preventing and combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. Not only do national specialized bodies and national action plans address the root causes of discrimination in various areas, such as employment, housing, education, the justice system, law enforcement and access to different goods and services, but they also serve to promote and bring about institutional and effective change in different State and private organizations. __________________ 1 16-13565 See, in particular, the country visit reports, available from www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues /Racism/ SRRacism/Pages/CountryVisits.aspx, and A/HRC/11/36, A/HRC/17/40 and A/HRC/18/44. 3/21