Welcome
About the Human Rights Recommendations Database and Search engine
The Human Rights Recommendations Database and Search engine was developed in 2014 – 2017 as an online platform hosted by Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) on behalf of the Government of Uganda and with support from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The database serves three critical aims; (i) Assist in the systematic monitoring of human rights recommendations from international, regional and national human rights mechanisms, such as the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR), Treaty Bodies and Special Procedures, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights as well as the Uganda Human Rights Commission, issued to the Government of Uganda; (ii) Facilitate the follow up on implementation of these recommendations by responsible government Ministries, Departments and Agencies, and (iii) Ensure wide dissemination of human rights recommendations that Uganda has received from these mechanisms among the general public in Uganda.
Background Information
The Government of Uganda is a signatory to several core international human rights treaties and has, as a result, assumed obligations to submit status reports to the monitoring bodies at the UN on a periodic basis.
One of the main challenges for the engagement of the State of Uganda with the human rights mechanisms has been the lack of a functional structure for state reporting which has consequently undermined coordination among the various State institutions to facilitate efficient and timely preparation of progress reports to treaty bodies.
UHRC has also been cognizant that over the years, a number of human rights recommendations issued by various mechanisms at the international, regional and national level are repeated in successive years by the same bodies in the absence of accurate information and updates on what has been done. This was further been complicated by the requirement for most MDAs to provide and or submit information to various treaty bodies which is a tedious exercise.
In light of this, the idea of developing a Database and Search Engine that encompasses all recommendations from human rights mechanisms was birthed in 2014. The aim of the Database is to provide a comprehensive tool for monitoring implementation of all human rights recommendations. It is also intended to ease the reporting process by providing agreed indicators, targets and baselines upon which MDAs are supposed to report. The Database will be updated periodically with current recommendations that are allocated to the responsible government institution in order to ease integration into the ordinary work plans of these institutions. This will in turn facilitate state reporting for various MDAs as this information is downloaded and exported for further use.
This Database was introduced at the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Human Rights in September 2013 for endorsement. In September 2014, the initial version of the Database was developed. The initial roll out (pilot) commenced in January 2015 targeting six Ministries and Departments including; Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs (MOJCA), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development (MOGLSD), Uganda Prisons Service (UPS), Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces (UPDF) and Uganda Police Force (UPF). These pilot MDAs were trained and supported to populate the Database with relevant updates while in the process giving valuable feedback that has been used to further improve the system that is to be launched today.