A government-funded multi-million-pound anti-racism campaign is due to start by early autumn.
The public awareness campaign will include anti-racism training with statutory and State bodies, school programmes aimed at promoting tolerance and extensive advertising and information initiatives.
The campaign will be co-ordinated by the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI), set up under the aegis of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.
The strategic plan for the campaign was delivered to the Department by the NCCRI last month and will be considered at next month's Cabinet meeting. The NCCRI's director, Mr Philip Watt, said a very detailed evaluation of the proposed campaign had been carried out, including consultation with relevant groups and case studies of similar programmes in Canada and Australia.
The NCCRI has already drawn up an anti-racism protocol for political parties, and Mr Watt said the campaign would highlight the need to ensure major policy documents were produced.
He said the role of statutory bodies and State agencies and how they interfaced with ethnic minorities would also be examined. "Stronger action needs to be taken by companies, and also staff need to be drawn from ethnic groups," he said.
"We need very strong leadership on this issue with a range of different people involved at local community as well as national level," Mr Watt added.