Regional Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

In 2022, the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion con­tin­ued to sup­port the region­al office (RO) of the Unit­ed Nations High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights (OHCHR) for East Africa. The OHCHR East Africa Region­al Office (EARO) is par­tic­u­lar­ly active in the field of human rights in Dji­bouti, Ethiopia and Tan­za­nia, three coun­tries where activ­i­ties have been car­ried out thanks to fund­ing from Luxembourg.

Luxembourg’s con­tri­bu­tions have enabled the EARO to respond to requests for tech­ni­cal assis­tance from Ethiopia and Dji­bouti in the field of human rights and inclu­sive gov­er­nance. This sup­port has also trans­lat­ed Luxembourg’s com­mit­ments at the lev­el of the Human Rights Coun­cil in Gene­va into action on the ground.

In ear­ly Novem­ber 2022, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Tigray People’s Lib­er­a­tion Front (TPLF) and of the Ethiopi­an cen­tral gov­ern­ment decreed a per­ma­nent cease­fire. In the post-con­flict con­text, the EARO was for­mal­ly invit­ed by the Ethiopi­an author­i­ties to pro­vide tech­ni­cal sup­port to the tran­si­tion­al jus­tice process and to deploy observers in the north of the coun­try to pre­vent the recur­rence of human rights vio­la­tions. Sim­i­lar­ly, the Dji­bout­ian author­i­ties have asked the EARO to pro­vide tech­ni­cal sup­port in advance of the country’s next Uni­ver­sal Peri­od­ic Review (UPR).

In Myan­mar, the OHCHR con­tin­ued to mon­i­tor the human rights sit­u­a­tion. In 2022, many peo­ple con­tin­ued to flee the coun­try to escape mil­i­tary vio­lence, avoid arrest and seek fresh per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties. Accord­ing to the OHCHR, an addi­tion­al 1.2 mil­lion peo­ple have been inter­nal­ly dis­placed and more than 70000 have left the coun­try, join­ing over a mil­lion oth­ers, includ­ing most of the country’s Rohingya Mus­lim population.

One year after the coup, the OHCHR has con­tin­ued to guide and sup­port human rights defend­ers, legal aid providers, jour­nal­ists and oth­er vic­tims of human rights abus­es and vio­la­tions, includ­ing through reset­tle­ment and emer­gency grants.

In 2022, the OHCHR’s tech­ni­cal coop­er­a­tion fund (VFTC) sup­port­ed tech­ni­cal coop­er­a­tion work for coun­try offices in Burk­i­na Faso, Chad, Mau­ri­ta­nia, Mex­i­co and Palestine.

In order to sup­port its mon­i­tor­ing and report­ing activ­i­ties on human rights, the OHCHR has finalised a com­pre­hen­sive map of the par­ties to the con­flict in Burk­i­na Faso to facil­i­tate iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of those respon­si­ble for human rights vio­la­tions and abus­es, while facil­i­tat­ing the Office’s engage­ment with nation­al actors, and in par­tic­u­lar the secu­ri­ty forces.

Fol­low­ing the coup d’état in Sep­tem­ber 2022, the OHCHR estab­lished a coop­er­a­tion frame­work with the Min­istry of Jus­tice and Human Rights to mon­i­tor, report and fol­low up on alle­ga­tions of human rights vio­la­tions by the secu­ri­ty forces and their civil­ian auxiliaries.