A/80/186 specialized agencies in order to enhance understanding and capacity concerning minority issues that are relevant to the scope of their work. Having recommended in her 2009 report to the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/10/11) that development processes should be more focused on the needs of minorities, she described her collaboration with UNDP in relation to poverty alleviation and the realization of the Millennium Development Goals for minorities. Some of the findings from a consultation she co-convened about the engagement of UNDP with minorities in development processes indicated that there was a need for empirical research about minorities and related capacity-building training; a lack of knowledge of the United Nations mechanisms related to minority issues; and a need to undertake specific programmatic activities focused on minority communities. Following that consultation, UNDP produced a resource guide on minorities in development to guide programmatic and policy work. 26 42. The former Independent Expert on minority issues, Rita Izsák -Ndiaye, building on her predecessor’s call to include minorities in development processes, advocated, in her 2014 report to the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/25/56), for the inclusion of minority issues in what was then called the post-2015 development agenda, which is now known as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals. Although she elaborately explained how the post -2015 framework needed to be based on minority rights and how the lack of focus on minority issues in the agenda was considered a failure, we now know that, regrettably, the 2030 Agenda left minorities behind. There is not a single mention of minorities in either the preamble to the 2030 Agenda or the targets and indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals. The failure to include a specific reference to the marginalization of minorities in the 2030 Agenda was also analysed by the previous mandate holder in his 2021 report to the General Assembly (A/76/162). 43. The current Special Rapporteur ’s attempt to include minority issues in the Summit for the Future and the Pact for the Future was also unsuccessful. 27 Significant roadblocks continue to prevent minority issues from being included in global development plans. As the previous mandate holder noted, “minorities” are frequently mentioned in the drafts of global development plans, but those references are then removed. 28 As stated in his 2024 report to the Human Rights Council ( A/HRC/55/51), the current Special Rapporteur remains committed to overcoming those challenges and ensuring that minority issues are included in the post-2030 development agenda. 44. In his 2022 report to the General Assembly (A/77/246), the previous mandate holder indicated that there had been a “complete failure to mainstream and integrate the rights of minorities at the United Nations”. Similarly, in his 2023 report to the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/52/27), he lamented the inaction of the United Nations in advancing the protection of minorities when compared with other marginalized groups (see para. 30 above and footnote 7) and again urgently called for the mainstreaming of minority rights in the United Nations. At the time of his report to the Human Rights Council, only six institutional measures to advance the rights of minorities had been taken since the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. 29 Among those measures, he put great emphasis on the 2013 Guidance Note of the Secretary-General on Racial Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, 30 which needs to be updated. While the current Special Rapporteur can only confirm those __________________ 26 27 28 29 30 25-11708 Available at www.undp.org/publications/marginalised-minorities-development-programmingresource-guide-and-toolkit. See footnote 9 above. A/HRC/52/27, para. 40. See A/HRC/52/27 para. 33; and sect. C.4 of the present report. See www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/Minorities/GuidanceNoteSG.pdf . 11/21