Ashgabat, 4 October 2019: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) together with the OHCHR conducted a working seminar for the member of the Inter-agency working group of Turkmenistan on implementation of the country’s human rights and humanitarian law obligations presenting the newly developed database for tracking national recommendations on the reporting to the UN human rights treaty bodies.

National Recommendation Tracking Database (NRTD) facilitates the recording, tracking and reporting on the implementation of human rights recommendations emanating from UN human rights treaty body mechanisms. It allows to increase information management, monitor the progress, coordinate actions and responses to the recommendations and promotes accountability and participation.

“Human rights recommendations received by States can be several thousands, sometimes overlapping. Tracking recommendations and related implementation actions requires enhanced information management capacity. NRTD allows to organize the recommendations, input corresponding actions and ensure that the reporting is easily monitored through this system. We are glad that the Government of Turkmenistan considers using this system for its own purposes,” noted OHCHR ROCA Regional Representative, Ryszard Komenda.

During the working seminar, OHCHR representatives presented the good practices of introduction of the information technologies into tracking the implementation of the recommendations of the UN human rights treaty bodies and case studies of application of various technologies around the globe, including NRTD. It was noted that NRTD can be customized to the needs of the States.  

Participants also conducted a practical exercise of introducing the Roadmap for implementation of the recommendations in the third cycle of the Universal Periodic Review, CEDAW Committee and Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 2018. During the exercise participants have clustered recommendations and the measures to address them and brainstormed how using the database could foster the process.

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OHCHR offers access to the NRTD to interested States through a technical assistance package customised to their capacity needs. Technical assistance includes support to the establishment or strengthening of a functioning National Mechanism for Reporting and Follow-up (NMRF) and the development of a plan to implement recommendations or a roadmap to have one and gradually enter it in the NRTD.