Document Library

Human Rights and the Millennium Development Goals: Making the Link

Author: United Nations Development Programme
Date: 2007
Size: 19 pages (825 KB)

Access full text: available online

Summary

While policies of aid agencies increasingly emphasise the connection between human rights and development, in practice the concepts often remain on separate, parallel tracks. This paper from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) provides guidance for development practitioners to link human rights with the design and implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The human rights framework can help achieve the MDGs in an equitable, just and sustainable manner and ground development work within a universal set of values.

Both human rights and the MDGs share principles of participation, empowerment, national ownership and the promotion of the dignity of all people. However, human rights are wider in scope than the MDGs. They target all countries, are legally binding and have no deadline. The MDGs, on the other hand, focus on key areas for achieving human development. They are a recommended set of objectives and have a timeline of 2015. While the MDGs are conducive to measurement, measuring human rights is more complex and less commonly attempted.

The human rights approach can contribute to the MDG agenda in a number of ways:

A human rights analysis identifies those groups whose rights have been violated, neglected or ignored, and those who have a responsibility to act. Development practitioners can use this analysis to identify rights that have been violated or neglected in development processes and design informed policy responses.
The human rights legal framework can guide the MDG process by affirming the rights of participation, access to information, association and expression.
Human rights specify minimum standards which are required before a right can be described as met (the ‘4As’ - accessible, affordable, adaptable and acceptable). These can be used by development practitioners to measure the quality of service delivery to citizens.
Human rights accountability mechanisms could be more engaged in monitoring MDG progress to ensure that development strategies are consistent with human rights.

Notwithstanding these linkages, the following concerns about the applicability of human rights to the MDGs need to be recognised and resolved:

Prioritising Development Objectives: Arguably, since the human rights framework holds that each right is equally important, it does not help in the prioritising of development issues. However, while there is no rights hierarchy, certain rights can be given priority in certain circumstances. The framework provides guidance, not specific formulae, for setting priorities that ensure that development choices do not compromise human rights principles and norms.
Enforcement and Accountability of Rights: Given that the enforcement of human rights is a serious challenge, legal remedy is only one strategy for holding states accountable to their international commitments. Using parliaments, human rights institutions, participatory processes, the media and civil society can help ensure that states are responsive to the basic rights of their people.

Access full text: available online

Source: UNDP, 2007, 'Human Rights and the Millennium Development Goals: Making the Link', Primer, United Nations Development Programme, Oslo
Author: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), http://www.undp.org/