A/49/677 English Page 5 governmental measures to overcome them, and to report on those matters to the Commission at its fifty-first session. 9. The Commission also requested the Special Rapporteur to have an exchange of views with the relevant mechanisms and treaty bodies within the United Nations system, including the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in order to further enhance their effectiveness and mutual cooperation, and encouraged him, in close consultation with Governments, relevant organizations of the United Nations system, other intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, to present further recommendations concerning human rights education with a view to preventing actions giving rise to racism and racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. 10. Lastly, the Commission requested the Secretary-General without further delay to provide the Special Rapporteur with all the necessary assistance in carrying out his mandate and enabling him to submit an interim report to the General Assembly at its forty-ninth session and a comprehensive report to the Commission at its fifty-first session. 11. On 3 November 1994, the Economic and Social Council, in its decision 1994/307, approved the Commission’s request to the Secretary-General without further delay to provide the Special Rapporteur with all the necessary assistance in carrying out his mandate and enabling him to submit an interim report to the General Assembly at its forty-ninth session and a comprehensive report to the Commission at its fifty-first session. 12. It should be noted also that the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, basing himself on the recommendations of the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights and the relevant resolutions of the Commission on Human Rights (1993/46 and 1994/45), sent a letter on 29 August 1994 to the Special Rapporteur, drawing his attention to the need to report regularly and systematically on available information on human rights violations affecting women. 13. Accordingly, this report has been prepared in response to the above-mentioned request of the Commission on Human Rights, which was approved by the Economic and Social Council, and takes account of the reminder from the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights concerning the particular situation of women. In the first section, the Special Rapporteur reviews the steps taken to define his mandate and then describes his working methods (sect. II). In section III, the Special Rapporteur reports on contemporary manifestations of racism and racial discrimination and on incidents which have been brought to his attention; he then proceeds in Chapter IV to identify the causes and vectors. Section V reviews the measures taken by Governments to remedy the situations described, the state of public opinion and initiatives of civil society, especially non-governmental organizations, that help to combat racism and promote social harmony. Lastly, section VI sets out the Special Rapporteur’s conclusions and recommendations. 14. As administrative constraints limit the length of the report, the Special Rapporteur will include only material he considers essential. /...