A/HRC/35/35 5. Participation as keynote speaker at a civil society organization international conference 11. The Independent Expert was invited by CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness to deliver a keynote address at its international conference, held in Bangkok on 30 and 31 March 2017. The Conference, entitled “Breaking ground, taking roots: the Istanbul Principles @7”, brought together representatives from civil society organizations working on development at both the national and international levels. Government officials representing a number of countries were also invited as speakers and discussants at the event. Acknowledging not only their contributions but also their weaknesses and challenges as development actors, civil society organizations affirmed their commitment to take action to improve and be fully accountable for their development practices, guided by Istanbul Principle No. 7, which states that: “CSOs are effective as development actors when they enhance the ways they learn from their experience, from other CSOs and development actors, integrating evidence from development practice and results, including the knowledge and wisdom of local and indigenous communities, strengthening innovation and their vision for the future they would like to see”. The Principles were adopted in 2010 by 200 civil society organizations in affirmation of their commitment to improve and be fully accountable for their development practice.4 12. The Independent Expert’s keynote address was entitled “Wanted and wanting: an enabling environment for civil society effectiveness in the 2030 Agenda”. It tackled the issue of the growing trend of shrinking civic space and why that needs to be reversed. Among other things, she pointed out that in paragraph 18 of the outcome document of the second high-level meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, held in Nairobi in December 2016, Governments committed to accelerating progress in providing an enabling environment for civil society, including in legal and regulatory terms, in line with internationally agreed rights. 5 She challenged them to apply the standards by which they measure States’ development effectiveness to themselves. Those standards are governance, accountability and participation. She also suggested that they should agree on plans for collective action to promote and advance a human rightsbased approach to implementing the Istanbul Principles, towards strengthening the development effectiveness and accountability of civil society organizations at the country level. B. Summary of key activities over the course of the mandate 1. Official country visits conducted by the Independent Expert 13. The Independent Expert conducted her first official country visit to Brazil, from 25 to 29 June 2012, in order to exchange views with the Government and other actors and to gather information on the so-called “solidarity diplomacy” experiences of Brazil, particularly in the context of its international cooperation activities. As she explained in her report (A/HRC/23/45/Add.1), the visit demonstrated the value of best practices as portals to the inherent interface between the policy and practice of international solidarity and the realization of human rights, and how such practices ineluctably lead to desirable outcomes towards the realization of human rights. 14. The Independent Expert visited Morocco and the Non-Self-Governing Territory of Western Sahara from 15 to 20 January 2016. During that visit, she paid particular attention to the nature of the cooperation between Morocco and its external partners, including development assistance cooperation, and the impact of such partnerships on the advancement of human rights. It was the first time that she was able to observe international development cooperation using the lens of the proposed draft declaration on the right to international solidarity on the ground. Her observations in that regard, including 4 5 See www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/publicdisplaydocumentpdf/?cote=DCD/DAC/EFF(2010)12 &docLanguage=En. See http://effectivecooperation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/OutcomeDocumentEnglish.pdf. 5