Thank you, Mr. President,
The Philippines highlights its support for the ongoing efforts to address the imbalance in geographical representation of the OHCHR staff, most notably in senior management positions.
We draw attention to the Diversity Task Force report of March 2017 which reveals that the OHCHR’s recruitment, selection and placement activities do not seem to foster a truly diverse workforce, favouring only one particular regional group (namely WEOG) by more than 50% of appointments as compared to the other four regional groups combined.
We maintain and reiterate our view that diverse geographical representation will give the OHCHR a greater appreciation of regional or local contexts, conditions and values. There should not be any misperception that the OHCHR is culturally biased and unrepresentative of the United Nations as a whole.
In this regard, we fully support this resolution in requesting the High Commissioner to continue her efforts to addressing the current geographical imbalance in staff composition, paying particular attention to senior management level, and in submitting a report on this at the 45th session of the Human Rights Council.
Thank you, Mr. President. END.