The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC), in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), organized a consultative meeting on Ethiopia’s 17th to 25th combined draft state report on the implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) on June 12, 2026, in Addis Ababa. The consultation aimed to ensure the stakeholders’ active participation in the report preparation process by providing their inputs and assessment of the state party’s performance in implementing its obligations under ICERD, including both positive developments and areas of concern and challenge.
The meeting brought together members of the state report drafting team (Inter-Ministerial Team), Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), line ministries, government agencies, and international organizations to ensure the report preparation process remains inclusive, participatory, and consultative. Participants were also familiarized with the Convention’s key features and the Concluding Observation adopted in 2009 by the (CERD), following its review of Ethiopia’s previous report submitted in 2008.
During the focus group discussions (FGDs), participants shared their feedback and concern on the draft report. The Inter-Ministerial Team and MoJ carefully recorded all inputs to strengthen the final report submission.
Mr. Yusuf Jemaw, Director of International Cooperation on Legal Affairs from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), underscored the state party’s obligation to submit periodic reports to treaty bodies in a timely manner and highlighted the importance of the reporting process in assessing a country’s compliance with its human rights obligations. He also outlined the process used to prepare the overdue 17th to 25th combined ICERD state report and acknowledged the challenges encountered during its drafting.
Dr. Abdi Jibril, EHRC’s Commissioner for Civil, Political and Socio-economic Rights, emphasized the need to periodically discharge reporting obligations in order to assess the state of implementation of international human rights treaties, noting that Ethiopia’s report to the CERD has long been overdue. He further called upon CSOs and state institutions to actively participate in the preparation of the national report, while noting that civil society organizations may still choose to submit their own independent or complementary report on the implementation of the ICERD.