Transcript Human/Women’s Rights Imperatives in Achieving the Millennium Development Goals Why “imperative?”  Increasing recognition that human rights underpins all.  All human rights are interconnected and interdependent  Democracy/Development/Human.

Human/Women’s Rights
Imperatives
in
Achieving the Millennium
Development Goals
Why “imperative?”
 Increasing recognition that human rights
underpins all.
 All human rights are interconnected and
interdependent
 Democracy/Development/Human rights
 Kofi Anan:
 There is no security without development, no
development without security, and there can be
neither without respect for human rights
The human rights
imperatives arises from:
UN Charter
Conventions and treaties
Summits and International Conferences
Declaration on the Right to Development
The Human Rights-based Approach
Overarching principles
 Universally recognized and legally binding standards
and principles provide a benchmark
 Equality and dignity before the law
 Non-discrimination on any basis, including gender
 Entitlements (rather than needs) of rights holders
 Responsibility of duty bearers (govts. nat’l and transnat’l organizations and businesses, other individuals)
 Participation and empowerment
Using a rights-based framework to achieve
MDGs essentially involves identifying and
monitoring the duty-bearers and empowering
the claim holders
Declaration on the Right to
Development (1986)
“The right to development is an
inalienable human right by virtue of
which every human person and all
people are entitled to participate in,
contribute to, and enjoy economic,
social and political development”
Components of the Right to
Development
 Respect for and reliance on Human Rights Principles
 Non-discrimination and Equity
 Accountability and Transparency
 Participation, empowerment
 Rule of law and good governance
 Achievement/enjoyment of economic and social rights
are necessary in order to fully enjoy civil and political
rights and fundamental freedoms, and vice versa
 States have the primary responsibility to ensure
conditions favorable to their realization – individually
and through international cooperation
 MDGs set the targets which should be seen within this
overall framework
MDG reports as entry point
 MDG reporting mechanism as a tool To ensure
that women’s rights, and a gender perspective
in general are prioritized
 Components of reports will then require
specific information that demand focused
research and in turn, focused efforts at
ensuring a rights perspective
 The challenge is how to shift the paradigm
from a matter of ‘principles’ to a matter of
legal commitment, and to define specific
and practical methods of doing so.
Requirements for achieving the MDGs;
human/women’s rights lens
Non-discrimination and Equity
Disaggregated Data is a MUST;
 by gender, age, region, ethnicity, etc.
 Progression over time
 A specific section may be added to the reports, under
a heading such as “Combating Discrimination Against
Women.”
 Include information on women within vulnerable
populations, especially refugees, IDPs and other
migrants to the MDG reports, and ensure their
consideration in national and international poverty
reduction strategies.
Requirements for achieving the MDGs;
human/women’s rights lens
Participation and empowerment
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Employment of participatory mechanisms in the
development of strategies and plans: periodic
sub-regional meetings, broad opinion surveys,
and encouraging grass-roots community
participation in particular.
Develop participatory processes for monitoring
and evaluating progress
Mobilize civil society organizations, academics
and research centres to participate and monitor
efforts within a human rights framework
Requirements for achieving the MDGs;
human/women’s rights lens
Good governance and the rule of law
 Assessment of Legislation that prohibits/legitimizes
discrimination on any basis
 Review of existing and new draft laws
 Include treaty commitments as legal obligations,
especially CEDAW and the two covenants
 Assessment of procedures, practices and enforcement
(or not) of relevant legislation
 Discuss stated policies and implementation
mechanisms
 Use recent reports from national and international
human rights organizations
Requirements for achieving the MDGs;
human/women’s rights lens
Progressive realization
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Add a specific budgetary element to the MDG reports with
specific information that tracks
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Changing budget allocations over time
Allocation of resources to achieve progressive improvement in
the achievement of gender equality and equity
Include such a budgetary element under each of the specific
goals put in a table format
Include information on prioritization of women’s rights and
perceived necessary trade-offs, making sure that progress
made in women’s rights is not rolled back when focus is
shifted to another priority in a different year.
This information should lead to an evaluative judgment of the
State’s meeting of its ‘obligations of conduct’ vis-à-vis efforts
to achieve progress on the Right to Development in the MDGs.
Requirements for achieving the MDGs;
human/women’s rights lens
Accountability
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four categories of accountability mechanisms: Judicial,
quasi-judicial, administrative and political
MDG reports themselves are an important form of
accountability; ensuring public discussion and evaluation
Where laws prohibiting discrimination or promoting
women’s equal rights are adequate, include information on
litigation, remedy and redress, and other efforts to access
judicial and quasi-judicial machinery for purposes of gender
equality in the achievement of the MDGS
Using quasi-judicial institutions: national human rights
institutions, ombudsmen, or similar bodies of a semi-official
or public nature to direct complaints and demands for public
accountability
Proper participation of all stakeholders also means that
everyone becomes accountable at one level or another,
including U.N. agencies, partner/donor countries, IMF/World
Bank and IFIs, and civil society organizations