that the Forum had established itself as the foremost international platform for dialogue among all stakeholders on the promotion and protection of the rights of minorities, as required by Council resolutions 6/15 and 19/23. She reiterated that the Council has benefited from the comprehensive recommendations from previous sessions of the Forum and commended the Forum for the publication of its compilation of recommendations from previous sessions as an indispensable tool for wider dissemination. While recognizing that in many countries the influence of the Declaration can be noticed in diverse ways, she pointed to the remaining work required from all stakeholders for the promises contained in the Declaration to become a reality for all. She encouraged all participants to engage in a constructive dialogue in seeking practical solutions to improve the situation of minorities everywhere. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Navanethem Pillay, underlined that the unanimous adoption of the Declaration in 1992 signaled the commitment of Member States to reinforce their efforts to protect minorities and to ensure that discrimination against them is combatted decisively, their cultures and identities protected, and their effective participation ensured in practice. She indicated that implementation of human rights standards must actively engage all national actors in a process of positive reform stressing that, when seen as an opportunity, implementation of human rights can be a means of bringing different stakeholders, including minority groups, together to work towards common goals of equality and non-discrimination. A national process of implementing minority rights should be framed as a transformative opportunity to help strengthen understanding between communities, establish trust, identify root causes of problems as well as sustainable solutions, and build much needed bridges of inter-ethnic and inter-faith dialogue and cooperation. Pointing to the crucial role played by the international community in the protection of minority rights, she welcomed the addition of the Network on Racial Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities, coordinated by OHCHR, to the two existing strong and complementary mechanisms for promoting minority rights within the UN system – the Independent Expert on minority issues and the Forum. The Independent Expert on minority issues, Ms Rita Izsák, first underlined that the Declaration’s 20th anniversary presented an opportunity to reinforce the messages and principles therein and to remind Member States and other stakeholders that its implementation is as important today as ever. She stressed that the rights and security of religious minorities is currently of particular concern in all regions as attacks on individuals, communities and their places of worship have increased. In other cases the challenges and discrimination faced by minorities are not in the form of violence, but rather in the shape of institutional discrimination or structural and administrative barriers to the enjoyment of their rights, the use of their language or the practice of their religion. She pointed to some long-standing and entrenched issues that continue to evade progress and that minority women and girls continue to face unique challenges and multiple forms of discrimination. Referring to her latest report to the General Assembly, she reemphasized her belief that the positive requirements for the protection of minority rights contained in the Declaration are best achieved through a national institutional and policy framework incorporating targeted attention to minorities. 3