A/HRC/24/52 State actions. In the same vein, he emphasized the importance of quality education. Despite progress made in making education accessible, learning outcomes were frequently below acceptable levels due to poor quality of education. That was an issue particularly faced by people of African descent. 27. Mr. Singh recommended that States should devise promotional measures aimed at ensuring equal access by the children of African descendants to education. These could include scholarships grants and subsidies for schoolbooks and travel expenses to attend school, as well as other support measures to increase those children’s school attendance. Moreover, the systemic exclusion of specific groups from higher levels of education could also be addressed through the adoption of temporary special measures. Those might range from the establishment of enrolment quotas to the offer of financial incentives targeted at particularly vulnerable groups. 28. Pastor Murillo Martinez, a member of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, delivered his presentation on the work of the Committee in relation to the theme of recognition for people of African descent through education, cultural rights and data collection. He stated that the Committee’s contribution to education, culture and data collection was found in several documents and fields of action, including its general recommendations and concluding observations. For instance, general recommendation No. 32 (2009) on the meaning and scope of special measures in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination called for special measures (affirmative action) to alleviate and remedy disparities in the enjoyment of human rights affecting particular groups and individuals. Such disparities could include persistent or structural disparities and de facto inequalities resulting from the circumstances of history. Special measures should be carried out by Member States on the basis of accurate data, incorporating a gender perspective, on the socioeconomic and cultural status and conditions of the various groups in the population and their participation in the social and economic development of the country. 29. Similarly, general recommendation No. 34 (2011) on racial discrimination against people of African descent specified the right of people of African descent to their cultural identity, to keep, maintain and foster their mode of life and forms of organization, culture, languages and religious expressions, as well as the right to the protection of their traditional knowledge and their cultural and artistic heritage. Concerning data collection, in paragraph 9 of general recommendation No. 34, it was underlined that States parties should “take steps to identify communities of people of African descent living in their territories, especially through the collection of disaggregated data on the population”. Finally, chapter XI of the general recommendation dealt with the importance of taking measures to guarantee the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights by people of African descent, including the right to education. 30. Mr. Murillo Martinez enumerated a number of examples of the Committee’s concluding observations in which Member States had been recommended to provide information, including statistical data, on the socioeconomic status of people of African descent. In his recommendations, he stated that the formulation of a declaration on people of African descent, as recommended by the Committee, in line with the proposed plan of action for the adoption of the International Decade for the People of African descent, could represent the opportunity to consolidate the rights of a group long discriminated against. He also hoped that the Decade would be proclaimed soon. 31. Following the three presentations, an NGO representative asked the presenters about the issue of the right to return of people of African descent. The role of the African Union in relation to people of African descent was also discussed. In his response, Mr. Murillo Martinez mentioned that it was important to make the Millennium Development Goals (2015) and the post-2015 agenda more inclusive of people of African descent. Ms. Sahli acknowledged the issue of the right to return to Africa, but stated that more clarity was 8