A/73/205 settlements. In addition, access to drinking water and basic services such as sanitation and power needed to be tackled as an emergency at the highest levels possible through a five-year action plan, pending the resolution of the status of Roma settlements and progress through other measures currently in place. 6. He addressed the effective implementation of comprehensive legislation for the protection of all minorities by noting that much had been accomplished for the protection of the rights of minorities such as Hungarians and Italians, but too many Slovenian citizens who were members of other minorities ha d been left out. He indicated that comprehensive legislation could be adopted to protect the rights of all Slovenian minorities, while respecting the currently established constitutional prominence and status of Hungarians, Italians and Roma. New legislati on should be explored and include provisions on education in the mother tongue where there was sufficient demand in a locality, to the degree appropriate, or to at least provide for the teaching of a minority language, where possible, as well as provisions guaranteeing fair and proportionate funding of cultural and other activities of minorities, including in the media. 7. As to the Hungarian and Italian minorities, although they had well -established rights and autonomy arrangements, there were still omissions or failures in implementation, with bilingual services not provided where they should be or bilingual officials and teachers either absent or lacking the required fluency levels. He recommended a review of hiring policies, language testing and bilingu alism requirements for civil servants and teachers in order to remedy those issues. 8. He recommended that sign language be recognized as the language used by members of the deaf community and that legislation be amended or adopted to make it an official language or to grant it some other status, as had been occurring in recent years in a growing number of countries. 9. His full report on the visit will be submitted to the Human Rights Council in March 2019. Botswana 10. The Special Rapporteur will conduct a mission to Botswana from 13 to 24 August 2018. A summary of the mission will be presented in his next report to the Human Rights Council. B. Other activities 11. In addition to the activities mentioned in his above-mentioned report to the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/37/66, paras. 7–30), on 11 October 2017 the Special Rapporteur spoke on the theme “An international point of view of indigenous language rights: power, identity and opportunity” as part of the Assembly of First Nations engagement sessions in Halifax, Canada. 12. On 30 January 2018, the Special Rapporteur was a guest speaker at the sixty first annual meeting of the Russian branch of the International Law Association, held at Moscow State University, where he focused on global challenges faced by minorities and the effectiveness of international law. On 2 and 3 March, in Budapest, he participated in an expert meeting organized by the Tom Lantos Institute on the theme “Challenges and ways forward: critical assessment of the international minority protection regime”. On 26 March, he was a keynote speaker for an event launching the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness at the University of Melbourne, Australia, where he highlighted why statelessness was, first and foremost, a minority issue, given that the vast majority of stateless persons are those who belong to 4/19 18-12048