FAQ ON A HUMAN RIGHTS-BASED APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION

The following excerpts are from the OHCHR Guide on Frequently asked Questions on a Human Rights-Based approach to Development Cooperation. They highlight some commonly asked questions on employing a HRBA in practice.  For the full range of FAQs as well as practical examples and case studies, consult the OHCHR Guide, available here.

1. What is a human rights-based approach?
2. What value does a human rights-based approach add to development?
3. What is the relationship between a human rights-based approach and gender mainstreaming?
4. Is a human rights-based approach consistent with the requirement for national ownership?
5. How do human rights standards relate to the development programming process?
6. What does the principle of equality and non-discrimination mean for programming?
7. What does the principle of accountability mean for programming?
8. What does the principle of participation mean for programming?
9. How do human rights help with situation analysis?
10. How do human rights guide programme formulation?

What is a human rights-based approach?

A human rights-based approach is a conceptual framework for the process of human development that is normatively based on international human rights standards and operationally directed to promoting and protecting human rights. It seeks to analyse inequalities which lie at the heart of development problems and redress discriminatory practices and unjust distributions of power that impede development progress.

Mere charity is not enough from a human rights perspective. Under a human rights-based approach, the plans, policies and processes of development are anchored in a system of rights and corresponding obligations established by international law. This helps to promote the sustainability of development work, empowering people themselves— especially the most marginalized—to participate in policy formulation and hold accountable those who have a duty to act.

While there’s no universal recipe for a human rights-based approach, United Nations agencies have nonetheless agreed a number of essential attributes (see annex II):

• As development policies and programmes are formulated, the main objective should be to fulfil human rights.
• A human rights-based approach identifies rightsholders and their entitlements and corresponding duty-bearers and their obligations, and works towards strengthening the capacities of rights-holders to make their claims and of duty-bearers to meet their obligations.
• Principles and standards20 derived from international human rights treaties should guide all development cooperation and programming in all sectors and in all phases of the programming process.

What value does a human rights-based approach add to development?

There are two main rationales for a human rights-based approach: (a) the intrinsic rationale, acknowledging that a human rights-based approach is the right thing to do, morally or legally; and (b) the instrumental rationale, recognizing that a human rights-based approach leads to better and more sustainable human development outcomes. In practice, the reason for pursuing a human rights-based approach is usually a blend of these two.

The question of adding value goes primarily to the instrumental case for a human rights-based approach. Importantly, a human rights-based approach seeks to build upon and learn from—rather than discard—the lessons of good development practice and strengthen arguments for their more consistent implementation. Empirical evidence and practice show the vital importance to development of many human rights outcomes, such as improved girls’ education,21 enhanced security of tenure22 and ensuring women’s equal access to land, and the importance of civil and political rights for good governance.  The practical value of a human rights-based approach to development lies in the following:

1. Whose rights? A human rights-based approach focuses on the realization of the rights of the excluded and marginalized populations, and those whose rights are at risk of being violated, building on the premise that a country cannot achieve sustained progress without recognizing human rights principles (especially universality) as core principles of governance. Universality means that all people have human rights, even if resource constraints imply prioritization. It does not mean that all problems of all people must be tackled at once.

2. Holistic view. A programme guided by a human rights-based approach takes a holistic view of its environment, considering the family, the community, civil society, local and national authorities. It considers the social, political and legal framework that determines the relationship between those institutions, and the resulting claims, duties and accountabilities. A human rights-based approach lifts sectoral “blinkers” and facilitates an integrated response to multifaceted development problems.

3. International instruments. Specific results, standards of service delivery and conduct are derived from universal human rights instruments, conventions and other internationally agreed goals, targets, norms or standards. A human rights-based approach assists countries in translating such goals and standards into time-bound and achievable national results.

Participatory process. Accountabilities for achieving these results or standards are determined through participatory processes (policy development, national planning), and reflect the consensus between those whose rights are violated and those with a duty to act. A human rights-based approach seeks both to assist in the participatory formulation of the needed policy and legislative framework, and to ensure that participatory and democratic processes are institutionalized locally and nationally (including through capacity-building among families, communities and civil society to participate constructively in relevant forums).

5. Transparency and accountability. A human rights-based approach helps to formulate policy, legislation, regulations and budgets that clearly determine the particular human right(s) to be addressed—what must be done and to what standard, who is accountable—and ensures the availability of needed capacities (or resources to build the lacking capacities). The approach helps to make the policy formulation process more transparent, and empowers people and communities to hold those who have a duty to act accountable, ensuring effective remedies where rights are violated.

6. Monitoring. A human rights-based approach to development supports the monitoring of State commitments with the help of recommendations of human rights treaty bodies, and through public and independent assessments of State performance.

7. Sustained results. A human rights-based approach leads to better sustained results of development efforts and greater returns on investments by:

• Building the capacity of prime actors to engage in dialogue, meet their own responsibilities and hold the State accountable;
• Strengthening social cohesion through seeking consensus with participatory processes, and focusing assistance on the excluded and most marginalized;
• Codifying social and political consensus on accountabilities for results into laws, policies and programmes aligned with international conventions;
• Anchoring human rights entitlements within a framework of laws and institutions;
• Institutionalizing democratic processes; and
• Strengthening the capacities of individuals and institutions to carry out their obligations as expressed in local, national and international laws, policies and programmes.

What is the relationship between a human rights-based approach and gender mainstreaming?

A human rights-based approach to development and gender mainstreaming are complementary and mutually reinforcing, and can be undertaken without conflict or duplication.

Gender mainstreaming calls for the integration of a gender perspective in development activities, with the ultimate goal of achieving gender equality. A human rights-based approach integrates international human rights standards and principles in development activities, including women’s human rights and the prohibition of sex discrimination. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has analysed comprehensively and in depth how inequality affects women’s lives; this is a valuable input for development policymaking and programming. When backed by national accountability systems, a human rights-based approach can greatly reinforce progress towards gender equality.

Gender mainstreaming and a human rights-based approach to development have much in common. Both rely on an analytical framework that can be applied to all development activities (for the former, the different situation experienced and roles played by men and women in a given society; and for the latter, a normative framework based on entitlements and obligations). Both call attention to the impact of activities on the welfare of specific groups, as well as to the importance of empowerment and participation in decision-making. Both apply to all stages of activity (design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation) and to all types of action (legislation, policies and programmes). Finally, both require the systematic adoption of new and different approaches to existing activities, as distinct from developing new and additional activities.

In most organizations, gender mainstreaming is a more familiar concept than human rights mainstreaming. Structures and processes set up to ensure gender mainstreaming can be emulated or adapted to facilitate the introduction of a human rights-based approach to programming more generally. But, equally, there is a need to learn from situations where gender mainstreaming has failed. If staff perceive mainstreaming gender (or human rights) as a bureaucratic or technical requirement without real implications for their own work, and if internal incentive structures are weak and lines of accountability unclear, the approach may have no impact.

Is a human rights-based approach consistent with the requirement for national ownership?

Yes. A human rights-based approach draws from international human rights standards voluntarily subscribed to by the country in question. United Nations development agencies

and other “subjects of international law” are legally bound to respect, and operate within the confines established by, the international legal obligations voluntarily entered into by States, including those relating to human rights.

States parties to the international human rights treaties are required to harmonize their national legislation with the international standards. Accordingly, national constitutions across different legal systems increasingly reflect not just civil and political rights but also economic, social and cultural rights. To this extent, the fundamental human rights objectives expressed in the Charter of the United Nations—the foundation for all United Nations-supported development activities—are consistent with and grounded within the principle of national ownership.

Nevertheless, a human rights-based approach is sometimes viewed with suspicion as an external conditionality or the latest development fad or donor import. These concerns are often voiced in good faith, although sometimes they may mask a desire to avoid human rights obligations.

Clear communication is needed on the distinctive meaning and requirements of a human rights-based approach in all situations, within the framework of a genuine development partnership. The United Nations and all those involved in implementing a human rights-based approach must themselves walk the talk in order to have credibility in policy dialogues on these issues.

How do human rights standards relate to the development programming process?

Human rights standards as reflected in the international treaties, as well as principles such as participation, nondiscrimination and accountability, should guide all stages of programming.

Human rights treaty standards are binding upon countries that have ratified them and help to define the objectives of development programmes. For example, the objectives of a food security programme can be reformulated explicitly to realize the right to adequate food under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Guided by human rights standards, governance programmes can more explicitly help to realize rights to liberty and security of person, and human rights concerned with political participation and the administration of justice under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The right to birth registration (Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 7) is an important focus of UNICEF programming in certain regions, given the importance of that right for the enjoyment of all others. The right to privacy (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, art. 17) can be instrumental in fighting the discrimination and stigmatization at the heart of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Human rights standards strengthen and deepen situation analysis. They also set certain conditions for implementing and monitoring the progress of development programmes. The general comments of the human rights treaty bodies, as well as their country-specific recommendations, can provide more detailed guidance on what the international human rights standards mean in all phases of programming.

What does the principle of equality and non-discrimination mean for programming?

All individuals are equal as human beings and by virtue of their inherent dignity. All human beings are entitled to their human rights without discrimination of any kind on the grounds of race, colour, sex, ethnicity, age, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, disability, property, birth or other status. While development programmes cannot reach everybody at once, priority must be given to the most marginalized.

The processes and benefits of development all too often go to national and local elites. Programming cannot be directed solely at those that are currently easy to reach, such as urban populations rather than rural or boys’ education rather than girls’, otherwise existing power imbalances will simply be exacerbated. Unintentional—or indirect—discrimination must also be avoided. This could occur, for example, when the public at large is invited to participate in programme design, but certain groups are precluded because they live in remote areas. Programming must help to address underlying and systemic causes of discrimination in order to further genuine and substantive equality. Specifically, programming may need to:

• Direct priority attention towards those suffering discrimination and disadvantage in any given context, especially the poorest of the poor and those suffering multiple discrimination,such as rural women of an ethnic minority.
• Strengthen capacities for data collection and analysis to ensure that data are disaggregated, as far as possible, on the grounds of race, colour, sex, geographic location and so forth.
• Advocate temporary special measures to level the playing field and rectify structural discrimination, including affirmative action for women and special forums for participation.
• Make project information available in accessible formats and minority languages.
• Support civic education, communication campaigns, law reform and institutional strengthening (including national human rights institutions) to foster nondiscriminatory attitudes and a change in behaviour.

What does the principle of accountability mean for programming?

Good development programming requires stakeholders (including donors and development agencies) to be accountable for specific results. A human rights-based approach goes further by grounding those accountabilities within a framework of specific human rights entitlements and corresponding obligations established under international law.

To ensure accountability, a human rights-based approach to programming starts by identifying specific obstacles that dutybearers face in exercising their obligations. This analysis sets a baseline for formulating development strategies to remove them. But for accountability to be effective, it needs to be demanded. Therefore a human rights-based approach also requires an analysis of the capacities needed for rights-holders, especially the poorest and most disadvantaged, to claim their rights effectively. Accessible, transparent and effective mechanisms of accountability are called for at central and local levels.

Ensuring accountability can be difficult in practice, particularly where national capacities are weak or duty-bearers are unwilling to act. There are no ready answers for all situations. Strategies can be supportive or confrontational and could include:

• Raise awareness of rights and responsibilities, and develop the capacities of duty-bearers at central and local levels to fulfil their obligations. Understanding and ownership by duty-bearers can be built by involving stakeholders in analysis, programme planning, implementation and reviews.#
• Build relationships between rights-holders and dutybearers by working together.
• Increase the incentives for better performance by duty-bearers, through educating people about their rights, creating broader alliances for social change in society, promoting transparent budgeting and building capacities for budget analysis, supporting advocacy for information and statistics necessary to monitor the realization of human rights, building capacities for policy analysis and social impact assessment, encouraging media freedom, and building the capacities of claim-holders to demand their rights.
• Strengthen central and local accountability mechanisms— judicial, quasi-judicial and administrative. Informal justice mechanisms, including traditional and indigenous justice systems, should be factored in together with the formal justice system, seeking alignment with international standards regarding the administration of justice.
• Strengthen the capacities of national human rights institutions, including their capacities to monitor the realization of economic and social rights.
• Ensure that national laws are harmonized with international human rights treaty standards, with duties spelled out as clearly as possible at national, provincial, district and local levels.
• When duty-bearers are private corporations or non- Government actors (for example, when governance functions are privatized), advocate adherence to international human rights norms and voluntary codes of conduct, monitor performance and publicize the results. Ensure that duties are made clear in national laws and policies, and that the regulatory framework includes provision for redress in the event of violations.
• Where weak institutions are being re-established, such as in post-conflict States, development actors should strengthen not only State institutions but also those institutions that fulfil a servicing and monitoring role.#
• Foster greater knowledge of and buy-in into the national reporting processes under the international human rights treaties in force in the country concerned, widely publicizing the treaty bodies’ recommendations.
• Encourage greater recourse to human rights “special procedures” and international petition procedures available under the international human rights treaties.

The principle of accountability also has a number of implications for the process of programming:

• Use qualitative data (such as opinion surveys or findings of expert bodies) as a supplement to quantitative data (such as the global Millennium Development Goal indicators) to reveal whether particular policies are helping to achieve the desired behaviour change.
• Ensure that monitoring takes place on an ongoing basis throughout development programmes. Monitoring should be participatory, involving all stakeholders as far as feasible, allowing them to assess both progress and any revisions required. This should be tied in to agencies’ reporting processes and staff performance systems.
• Establish monitoring systems at United Nations country team and agency level. United Nations country team theme groups should ensure that human rights are cross-cutting in their activities. A stand-alone human rights theme group could help to monitor this. Other monitoring systems may also be needed, such as civil society organizations’ oversight bodies, advisory boards and regular stakeholder meetings (Government, civil society organizations, donors and the most disadvantaged groups) to assess progress and impact.

Ensure that programming processes are coordinated with those of other agencies and donors, priorities are aligned with national priorities and delivery is through national systems rather than project implementation units.

• Undertake social impact analysis, including gender analysis, throughout the course of the programme.
• Make information available on stakeholders’ entitlements under the project or programme, including any grievance address mechanisms.

What does the principle of participation mean for programming?

Participation means ensuring that national stakeholders have genuine ownership and control over development processes in all phases of the programming cycle: assessment, analysis, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation

Human rights standards influence the conditions as well as reasonable limitations of participation. For processes to be truly participatory, they should reflect the requirement for “active, free and meaningful” participation under the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development. Women in rural areas have the right to participate in development planning at all levels (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, art. 14) and children’s views must likewise be taken into account (Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 12). However, the right to participate in public affairs (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, art. 25) does not necessarily give particular groups of people an unconditional right to choose any mode of participation.

Participation is an objective, as well as a means, of development. From a human rights perspective, participation goes well beyond mere consultation or a technical add-on to project design. Rather, participation should be viewed as fostering critical consciousness and decision-making as the basis for active citizenship. Development strategies should empower citizens, especially the most marginalized, to articulate their expectations towards the State and other duty-bearers, and take charge of their own development. This may require:

• Budgeting and building capacities for civil society organization and effective participation, within the framework of development programmes.
• Increasing transparency, making policies and project information available in accessible formats and minority languages as needed.
• Creating specific channels for participation by the poorest and most marginalized groups, with sensitivity to social and cultural context. These mechanisms must be integrated throughout the programming process (rather than just at the formulation stage, where participation often stops).
• Civic education and human rights awareness-raising as cross-cutting components of development programmes, rather than optional add-ons.
• Supporting media and communications campaigns.
• Advocacy for and capacity-building of networks of local social communicators.
• Broadening alliances with civil society organizations and groups with shared interests, and strengthening networks to articulate their expectations of the State and other duty-bearers.

How do human rights help with situation analysis?

Human rights analysis gives an insight into the distribution of power. By identifying groups lacking effective rights—and groups who may be denying rights to others—it can highlight the root causes of poverty and vulnerability. As such, a rights approach provides a way of examining the operation of institutions and political and social processes that influence the livelihoods of the poor and the most vulnerable.

Consistent with the United Nations Development Group’s guidelines for CCA and UNDAF, human rights standards reinforce situation analysis at three levels:

• Causality analysis: drawing attention to root causes of development problems and systemic patterns of discrimination;
• Role/obligation analysis: helping to define who owes what obligations to whom, especially with regard to the root causes identified; and
• Identifying the interventions needed to build rights-holders’ capacities and improve duty-bearers’ performance.

Critically, a human rights-based approach seeks to deepen understanding of the relationships between rights-holders and duty-bearers in order to help bridge the gaps between them.

A human rights-based analysis may reveal capacity gaps in legislation, institutions, policies and voice. Legislative capacities may need to be strengthened to bring national laws into compliance with treaty obligations. Institutional reforms may be needed to improve governance, strengthen capacities for budget analysis and provide people with effective remedies when human rights are violated. Policy reforms may be needed to combat discrimination, and ensure consistency between macroeconomic and social policies, scaling up public expenditure towards the Millennium Development Goals. Recommendations of the human rights treaty bodies can provide relevant and authoritative guidance on the nature and extent of many of these obligations.

Development agencies may need to move beyond their traditional sectors or “silos” in the quest for strategies to reach the most disadvantaged groups and in order to work more deeply and collaboratively on the root causes of problems affecting all sectors.

How do human rights guide programme formulation?

A human rights-based approach has significant implications for the manner in which development priorities and objectives are identified and country programme outcomes formulated.

To help the United Nations determine its priorities, the CCA/UNDAF guidelines call attention to the Millennium Development Goals, the Millennium Declaration, national priorities reflected in the human rights treaties ratified by the country, as well as recommendations of the treaty bodies. Human rights help by establishing boundaries, for example by requiring a core minimum threshold of entitlements for all, and by highlighting key issues that must be addressed through programming, for example that priority attention should be given to the poorest of the poor and groups suffering discrimination. Even if not all can be reached at once, efforts should be made to identify these groups at the outset and include them immediately in planning. Human development analysis and tools, in turn, help in prioritizing efforts to realize rights for poor groups, suggesting which kinds of rights are the most important for a particular group at a particular time or the sequence in which rights should be approached for a given group.

Under a human rights-based approach, development efforts should contribute to realizing human rights. Accordingly, national goals and the overarching objectives of development should be geared towards, and articulated as, the positive and sustained changes in the lives of people necessary for the full enjoyment of a human right or rights. The basis for this definition lies in the international commitments undertaken by the Government concerned, including the Millennium Development Goals and obligations under human rights treaties. Such goals imply a long time horizon.

Specific objectives (such as those defined in UNDAF outcomes) can be thought of as the behaviour change in the duty-bearer to respect, protect and fulfil a right or rights, and in the rights-holder to exercise and demand a right or rights. The CCA role/pattern analysis (defining who should do what) should inform the kind of behaviour change needed, aided by national legislation, plans and policies, and relevant recommendations of the treaty bodies. Specific objectives (or UNDAF outcomes) imply a medium time horizon

Finally, country programme outcomes should be geared towards the institutional, legal or policy changes necessary for desired behaviour change. The CCA capacity gap analysis—informed by relevant recommendations of the treaty bodies—should indicate the capacities necessary for duty-bearers to respond to claims, and for rights-holders (especially the most disadvantaged) to demand and advocate the exercise of their rights. Country programme outcomes are defined for a short time horizon.