H) Cleanliness 587. Within the framework of the regional programmes on cleanliness, the municipalities have pursued their activities in this field by ensuring: • The programming and implementation of exceptional cleansing activities; • The eradication of ancient rubbish dump sites; • The pursuit of allocating spaces for the dumping of rubbish, rubble from construction sites and from gardens; • The maintenance and protection of the environment of the forests close to the cities by ensuring that these forests are not transformed into black points; • The control of plastic waste pollution; • The protection of the coastal environment and maintaining the cleanliness of the public beaches. 588. The Tunisian NGOs undertake to work efficiently towards the success of the national programmes on the sustainable management of hydric resources, for the protection of these resources, the reporting of all abuses to the authorities and for the sensitization of all the sectors of the population, in particular the children, on the need to economize water and to preserve its quality. 589. All these policies and efforts enabled Tunisia to make great progress in the area of protection of the environment and of the natural capital as outlined in the various international Reports specialized in the subject. Thus, the Report of the World Bank relating to « the analysis of the environmental performance », indicates that Tunisia is at the head of the group of countries of the Southern bank of the Mediterranean basin, through reference to the sustainable development indicator, and that it occupies an honourable position among the countries which have succeeded in reducing the cost of environmental degradation. 590. In consideration of Tunisia’s efforts and its contribution to the protection of the ozone layer, the United Nations Environment Programme gave Tunisia its first prize in 1977. Article 25 Publication of the culture of Human Rights 591. Article 25 of the Charter stipulates that « the States Paties shall have the duty to promote and ensure through teaching, education and publication, the respect of the rights and freedoms contained in the present Charter ». 592. The laws and mechanism can undoubtedly protect human rights, but they gain by being completed through an educative, cultural and media strategy. In this regard, the Tunisian Government considers that one of the major foundations of the protection and promotion of human rights, of the apprenticeship in democracy consists in disseminating the culture of human rights on a vast scale, as well as civic education aimed at promoting human rights at the level of the secondary and tertiary educational institutions and in the specialized institutions. 123