A/HRC/56/51 2. Lessons learned and opportunities for enhanced action 71. The Working Group faces a challenge in ensuring a systematic follow-up to its work, including its communications and country visits, due to the limited resources available and, to a certain extent, to the limited degree of engagement of the States concerned, a challenge that is shared by other mandates. The responses to the Working Group’s questionnaire suggest that, despite its efforts, the visibility and dissemination of its work are limited. New strategies to reach out to women and girls from marginalized communities and facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination should be explored, in collaboration with national and local actors. Similarly, current engagement with girl activists should be institutionalized and a methodology for engagement with them should be devised. 72. The Working Group considers that regional human rights mechanisms and national human rights institutions are key allies in its work. A strategy to facilitate their regular cooperation, as well as their involvement in the follow-up and dissemination of the Working Group’s work, would be desirable. Moreover, the Working Group believes that it is crucial to intensify collaboration with other special procedures, as was done, inter alia, to address the situation of women’s and girls’ rights in Afghanistan and Gaza and to call for an independent investigation into allegations of sexual violence in Israel and Palestine.86 D. Setting the vision for the coming years of the mandate: women’s and girls’ substantive equality 1. Committing to substantive gender equality 73. As the Working Group embarks on a new six-year mandate, it will continue to focus on counteracting the escalating gender backlash through all its working methods. At the same time, as an overarching framework, it will develop an understanding of substantive equality for women and girls and the concrete implications that it holds for States and other actors in the face of contemporary challenges. Substantive equality requires not only ensuring de facto equality between women and men and girls and boys, but also committing to a conception of transformative equality, in other words, the transformation of elements of society, culture, politics and the economy that create barriers to equality. 74. The principle of substantive equality is central to the international human rights framework and human dignity. It involves ensuring equality of opportunity, as well as equality of results. It requires addressing discrimination in laws, policies and practices; redressing disadvantage; addressing stigma; providing reasonable accommodations for the particular needs of women and girls; combating harmful stereotypes, prejudice and violence; adopting positive measures, when necessary; and making the structural changes necessary for women and girls to fully participate in all areas of life.87 Substantive equality involves an affirmative ideological commitment to human dignity for all and a further practical commitment on the part of States and other actors to engage in the sometimes difficult and intensive work of achieving it. 75. On the basis of that framework, the Working Group will devote its annual thematic reports and other analyses to identifying and addressing the specific challenges to the advancement of substantive gender equality in all spheres of life. It will do so with renewed 86 87 16 See, for example, A/HRC/53/21; OHCHR, “Gaza: UN experts call for prioritisation of genderresponsive humanitarian interventions”, press release, 21 February 2024; OHCHR, “Israel/oPt: UN experts appalled by reported human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls”, press release, 19 February 2024; OHCHR, “Occupied Palestinian territory and Israel: UN experts call for permanent ceasefire to protect rights and futures of women and girls”, press release, 14 December 2023; and OHCHR, “UN experts urge States to unite for peace and push for ceasefire in Gaza”, press release, 8 December 2023. See Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, arts. 1–5 and 24; Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, general recommendation No. 25 (2004); and A/43/38. See also A/HRC/53/39; and Sandra Fredman, Discrimination Law, 3rd ed. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2022). GE.24-07559