Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights and Faculty Director and Co-Chair of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, announced that he will be conducting an official country visit to Ghana on April 9-18, 2018 to examine the situation relating to people living in extreme poverty and to assess the impact on the realization of their human rights.

He invites individuals who work on or experience poverty in Ghana, non-governmental organisations, activists, and scholars to provide input for the preparation of his visit.

Submissions should be concise and focused, and may include additional supporting materials. The preferred length is not more than 1500 words.

Submissions can address, but need not be limited to, topics such as:

• The nature of poverty and inequality in Ghana, including prevalence, distribution etc.
• What are the major challenges confronting those living in poverty in Ghana?
• What are the most severe human rights-related problems that people living in poverty and extreme poverty in Ghana experience? Please provide examples.
• How does poverty in Ghana intersect with civil and political rights, as well as with economic, social and cultural rights? Please provide examples.
• What role do the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, as well as multi-national or domestic corporations play in relation to poverty alleviation?
• What regions, districts, cities, or municipalities in Ghana should the Special Rapporteur visit given the severity of problems relating to the intersection of poverty and human rights?
• Which individuals and organizations should the Special Rapporteur meet with during his country visit to Ghana?

Send to:  srextremepoverty@ohchr.org 

**Please note that the Special Rapporteur will also receive input via browser-based encrypted email service.  Please contact us via the email above if you wish to further communicate via encrypted email.

Closing date:  28 February 2018

The Special Rapporteur’s visit will lead to a detailed end of mission statement and a formal report to the United Nations Human Rights Council. The end of mission statement comprises approximately 10 pages of preliminary observations. The final report is strictly limited to 10,700 words. While it is difficult to do justice in such a short report to all of the complex and important issues that inevitably arise, the broader processes involved in the visit can be used in advocacy efforts to draw attention to particular issues.

The Special Rapporteur greatly appreciates the effort that goes into making contributions and looks forward to reading all submissions.

The Special Rapporteur is an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. Professor Philip Alston is the current Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. He will report on his visit to the Human Rights Council in June 2019. UN independent experts visit countries around the world to report on human rights issues related to their mandates. In recent years, the Special Rapporteur has undertaken country visits to Chile, Romania, Mauritania, China, Saudi Arabia and the United States of America. Further information on the Extreme Poverty mandate can be found at:http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Poverty/Pages/SRExtremePovertyIndex.aspx

Twitter:  @Alston_UNSR 
Facebook: www.facebook.com/AlstonUNSR

For more information and media requests, please contact: Ms Patricia Varela (Email: pvarela@ohchr.org) or Ms Junko Tadaki (Tel: + 41 22 917 9298 / Email: jtadaki@ohchr.org), or write to srextremepoverty@ohchr.org.

OHCHR press release