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Practical Guidance to Implementing Rights Based Approaches, Human Rights Analyses for Poverty Reduction and Human Rights Benchmarks

Author: E Filmer-Wilson
Date: 2005
Size: 29 pages (260 KB)

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Summary

To what extent are human rights being incorporated into development programmes? How can a human rights-based approach best be developed? This report, by the UK Government Department for International Development (DFID), brings together material collated from development organisations in four key areas: practical guidance on rights-based approaches, including case studies and checklists; analytical tools which feature human rights for understanding the causes and characteristics of poverty; human rights impact assessment; and human rights indicators to measure development progress.

Because of different working contexts, development organisations vary in their approach to human rights and to the human rights-based approach to development (RBA). Some prefer tools and methodologies that focus on issues such as "global governance" and "social accountability", which reflect and include key human rights principles. Many bi-lateral development organisations recognise the potential contribution of rights-based approaches and have formulated policy to reflect this. However, most agencies are only beginning to explore ways to implement their rights-based policy and have not yet developed their own tools. There is broad agreement, from both the Donor and NGO community that a lot more work needs to be done at a practical level. So far:

• A few basic tools for human rights analyses of poverty have been developed and are being used in the field.
• These tools have helped staff to focus on the relationship between the right-holders and duty-bearers in their poverty alleviation work.
• Most development organisations have separated gender and social exclusion from human rights and have produced specific tools for each area.
• Human rights impact assessment is an area of increasing interest. Yet assessment tools are only now being developed and pilot tested.
• Almost no work has been done on the use of human rights indicators in development projects.
• No donor governments are yet using human rights indicators as a basis for dialogue with recipient governments, although a number are exploring ways of doing this.

Before human rights indicators can be used, a conceptual and methodological approach to human rights indicators needs to be developed. Below is a summary of the key recommendations from development staff on practical guidance for implementing a RBA. Many of the guidelines included in this report are still at the pilot stage.

• An integrated approach to human rights mainstreaming is needed: staff want a single tool that includes gender, social exclusion.
• Simply providing training designed to introduce staff to the RBA and its implications, and then leaving people to get on with developing programmes from a RBA, is not sufficient.
• It is not possible to programme by just using human rights principles. This can easily become very legalistic and dogmatic.
• There need to be clear incentives to integrate a RBA. Staff performance appraisals, for example, should reflect RBA.
• Better co-ordination across portfolios is needed: strong linkages across projects would bring great value.
• Agencies could establish a standing RBA team, which would work to mainstream human rights in the programme. To do this effectively, staff would need sufficient resources and formal recognition of their roles.

Access full text: available online

Source: Filmer-Wilson, E., 2005, ‘Practical Guidance to Implementing Rights Based Approaches, Human Rights Analyses for Poverty Reduction and Human Rights Benchmarks’, Report prepared for the Department for International Development (DFID), London