The Human Rights Division of the United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire, in partnership with the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA) - National School of Administration, on Friday, 8 April 2016, organized a public conference on the theme: ‘’The Role and Place of Human Rights in an Efficient Administration » in Abidjan.

’’This conference is a response to a request by the ENA to the United Nations to help them strengthen the capacity of the students on new subjects, such as Human Rights, Protection of Civilians and the Prevention and Management of Conflict and Gender Equality.

During the opening session the representative of the Director of the ENA, Corinne Oulaï who is the director of the Administrative Management and Diplomacy Department, recalled that as part of its modernisation, ENA had undertaken several actions aimed at incorporating new subjects into its curricula in order to take into account people’s demands in terms of the conduct of public affairs.

The conference, the first in a series of activities that will be organized by the ENA and UNOCI, aims to familiarise the future Ivorian administrators with the concept of human rights which today is a fundamental notion nationally as well as internationally. « The ENA, through its reforms, would like to be an institution of excellence and this can only be done through training. We would like a strong and modern administration, and it was important that our future administrators familiarize themselves with certain issues so that the State can count on them to kickstart the country’s development », said Mrs Oulaï.

The Acting director of UNOCI’s Human Rights Division and representative of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Juliette de Rivero, in her address, expressed her joy at the fact that the administrators of the state of Côte d’Ivoire had decided to incorporate the issue of human rights in their training because the issue of human rights, she insisted, is pertinent due to the fact that it demands the commitment of Head of State.

« The State being at the centre of the protection of human rights, future administrators must be familiar with those rights in order to treat citizens in a non-discriminatory manner. In the civil service, they will be called upon to pronounce on all kinds of situations and they therefore must have this idea that every human being has dignity and rights which must be protected. These human rights are benefits for the rule of law which in its turn must reassure investors and enterprises and create a peaceful climate and economic development can be based on these, » explained Mrs De Rivero.

During her presentation, Mrs de Rivero highlighted the obligations and roles of the administration in the protection and the promotion of human rights. She outlined three types of obligations, namely the obligations to respect, protect and to implement human rights. All these obligations require the administration take action to protect these guaranteed rights.

« Today we have a panoply of international legal instruments which form the legal framework of the universal human rights. In your future posts you will have the possibility to protect human rights and to ensure that they are respected, for example, by insisting that every citizen is treated equally and in a non-discriminatory way by facilitating freely exercising freedom of expression and protest in your constituencies and monitoring child protection and supporting equal employment, especially with regard to women», explained Mrs de Rivero.