HIGHLIGHTS OF RESULTS OVERVIEW OF 2019 BY THE HIGH COMMISSIONER OMP 2018-2021 at mid-point: Looking back at the first two years When I was appointed High Commissioner for Human Rights in September 2018, my Office had just initiated the implementation of its four-year Management Plan (OMP) 2018-2021, building on the previous OMP from 20142017. This Plan is the product of a broad participatory process that provides both stakeholders and staff across the organization with an opportunity to discuss and contribute to the office-wide strategy, thereby enhancing the relevance of a management document to different human realities on the ground. It also boosts external trust and alignment, in addition to internal staff ownership and buy-in, and provides a solid programmatic framework to navigate through the present turbulent waters. As is the case with any programme, however, the OMP needs constant adjustments to ensure its relevance in our rapidly changing international environment. That is why I have undertaken a number of initiatives to continue to sharpen our programmatic focus during the first two years of the OMP. While ensuring agility in our current responses, these initiatives pave the way for the next OMP, which we will define in 2021. 14 UN HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2019 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS, PREVENTION AND ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS Since my appointment, I have taken steps to strengthen the focus of UN Human Rights on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), prevention, economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) and gender equality. Investing in these four critical interconnected areas enables my Office to draw on the potential of the UN system reform and the consensus to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, while contributing to implementing the Secretary-General’s prevention agenda. Our objective is to reiterate and bring to the fore the linkages across the SDGs and sustaining peace, the indivisibility of all human rights, while underscoring the value added and the difference our work makes in people’s daily lives. In 2019, my Office adopted a Prevention Strategy and allocated funds for its implementation. The Strategy outlines how our work on ESCR and addressing inequalities, especially economic inequalities, within the context of implementation of the SDGs, can contribute to conflict prevention. In September, I launched the “Surge Initiative” to identify and pilot ways to further support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in the field. A surge team, composed of four staff and a senior economist, spearheaded this effort. Through the Initiative, we are documenting impactful changes and exploring ways to replicate or scale up good practices, while also identifying and addressing blind spots. The surge team has been facilitating these pilots to achieve cross-fertilization among field presences and has provided advice to over 50 field presences, including in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks. A newly established “Community of Practice on SDGs, Prevention and ESCR” is also helping us to share documented examples of our results on the ground. This online community offers a means to scale-up and cross-fertilize engagement in these three interlinked areas of work. In less than three months, the platform has reached more than 300 users and became a dynamic vehicle to connect staff throughout the world to share their good practices and experiences, resources and materials, provide peer support and identify colleagues with particular expertise in these fields. An analysis of the Annual Workplans 2020 across the Office demonstrated that the work of the surge team is already having an impact. A considerable number of field presences have either scaled-up their ongoing work or planned new activities for 2020 in areas such as engaging with the Cooperation Framework processes; analysing the consequences of inequalities on ESCR, deteriorating economic situations and economic policies; addressing corruption as a structural cause of human rights violations; and working on business and human rights. Enhanced engagement in humanitarian action through partnerships at the global level, as well as with Humanitarian Country Teams and Protection Clusters, is another unique