- Norway commends the open and consultative process behind these guidelines and the opportunities for stakeholders to provide comments.
- We firmly support the need for guidance on these issues, though we look forward to the day when we can call such guidelines just that, without including ‘voluntary’.
- The guidelines are comprehensive, and we strongly support the human rights based and gender transformative approach being taken. We encourage even more concrete guidance on how interventions for women’s rights and gender equality in the context can be truly transformative. For this to become a reality, we need to develop policy and interventions that challenge established informal and formal structures at a societal level.
- We support the inclusion of language on LHBTIQ in the guidelines, as well as more concrete language on disability and other grounds of practiced discrimination. If the guidelines are to really adopt a human rights-based approach, the human rights of everyone must be protected.
Anne Wetlesen