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Topic guides:Thinking
about rights:Rights and development
Rights and development: A look at rights
based approaches
 Rights
and development have become linked as human rights and development
literatures and practice have begun to influence each other. Advocates
of this merger see development as a right, and the realisation of
rights as imperative to development.
The rights-based approach to development is based on the premise
that the denial of human rights is inherent in poverty, and therefore
addressing poverty requires working towards the realisation of rights.
Many development actors, including official agencies [see below],
non-governmental organisations, and others advocate the rights-based
approach to development. Some see this approach as one that explicitly
draws upon the human rights framework and emphases the need for
more transparent and explicit accountability on the part of those
that have ratified global human rights conventions and treaties.
Another importnant aspect to the rights-based to development is
the shift from service delivery to beneficiaries to the 
realisation of rights
for citizens. This implies that development practice must
be informed by
understandings of rights.
However, a number of challenges facing the rights-based approach
go unresolved. While the principles of the approach are important,
there is a lot to learn about the relationship between rights and
development - both conceptually and in practice. The
Development Research Centre of Citizenship, Participation and Accountability
is working towards this.
Official agencies
 The
relationship between rights and development has been explored and
taken on by a number of official development agencies, including
the United Nations and bilateral donor agencies.
In 1993, the long-standing debate on rights and development took
off at the
United
Nations World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna.
There, the recognition of interdependence between democracy, development
and human rights was considered a means to prepare the way for future
co-operation between official agencies and donor agencies [link
to bilateral donor agencies page - under construction] on the promotion
of human rights, including the right to development.
One of the first bilateral donor development agencies explicitly
to adopt a rights-based approach is the UK Department for International
Development, DFID. In its 2000 publication, Realising
human rights for poor people: strategies for achieving the international
development targets, DFID emphasises that the
Millenium
Development Goals will only be achieved with the engagement
of poor people in the decisions and processes that affect their
lives.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) also articulates
the relationship between human rights and development in its high
profile Human Development Report 2000.
This document presented human rights as an intrinsic part of development,
and development as a means to realising rights.
Most recently, the United Nations Office of the High Commission
on Human Rights (UNHCHR) focuses on the adoption of a rights approach
to poverty reduction strategies. It's Draft Guidelines:
a human rights approach to poverty reduction strategies (2002)
presents guidelines to assist governments in the integration of
human rights in the design of poverty reduction strategies.
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Recommended Reading on Rights and
Development..
FEATURED: United Nations High Commission for Human
Rights (2002) Human rights approach
to poverty reduction strategies: draft guidelines,
UNHCHR More..
Department for International Development (2000)
Realising human rights for poor people:
strategies for achieving the international development
targets, DFID (UK) More..
United Nations Development Programme (2000)
Human Development Report 2000 UNDP
More..
Eyben, R. (2003) The rise
of rights: Rights-based approaches to international
development Citizenship DRC More..
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