(1) Linking development work to human rights
Human rights-based strategies (the HRBA) make a clear link between the human rights of individuals or communities and development. See here for a more detailed outline about what are human rights. This link has become more and more explicit in recent years with the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development, 1986, mainstreaming human rights into the United Nations machinery from the late 1990s and their integration in the UNDP Human Development Report from 2000. Development is a process of expanding the real freedom that people enjoy. Human rights also seek to expand freedom from fear and freedom to access resources. In short: development work and human rights values have always been interlinked. Not it is a matter of taking this link to the practical field! And this is where human rights-based strategies come in…
Human rights-based strategies recognise the importance of all human rights. But maybe even more importantly, they also recognise the moral political and often legal power human rights provide to advance struggles against poverty. This is particularly so given that human rights are the only universally accepted normative framework that exists in the world and it is premised on the consent of States. Therewith, human rights prohibit trade-offs and mandate priority for the most marginalised groups in society.
From Principle to Practice
CARE Bolivia’s Alternative Youth Education (AYE) programme was designed to meet the specific educational and life-skill training needs of street and working-children, by offering them a tailored curriculum through night classes. While not designed to promote human rights as an end in itself, the AYE programme saw the need to emphasise rights education to promote the dignity of these young people who were at risk, being exploited and devalued by their teachers, and to encourage respect for them. Recognising the specific needs of working street children, CARE Bolivia developed an alternative education curriculum geared towards their holistic development. The programme was based on a vision of education that encompassed empowerment of young people, especially girls and young women, to strengthen their self-worth, identity, and knowledge of rights as healthy, reproductive individuals and as citizens. This was achieved by also addressing the behaviour and attitudes of parents, teachers, and the institutions with which they engaged. The programme not only developed the children’s life skills but also strengthened their identity and self-worth, developed their abilities to define their rights and exercise their citizenship, protected their sexual and reproductive rights, and raised awareness of gender equity to overcome discriminatory attitudes and behaviours towards women.
Principles into Practice: Learning from innovative rights-based programmes
CARE (2005)
Strategically, it is not always necessary for development actors to use the legal language of rights. However, human rights do provide a framework for analysing underlying causes of poverty. Human rights-based strategies help you to identify relevant rights-holders and duty bearers and give you the instruments to hold duty bearers accountable for the realisation of human rights. Finally, human rights broaden the tools of development work through, for example, lobbying for necessary laws, policies, budget allocations and action plans. Thus, linking human rights to development work is not merely a logical step forward. Human rights-based strategies are essential when it comes to strengthening development work in a globalising world.
