Integrating Human Rights into Development A synthesis of donor approaches and experiences This report has been prepared by Laure-Hélène Piron and Tammie O’Neil (Overseas Development Institute) for the OECD-DAC Network on Governance (GOVNET). The views expressed in this report are those of the consultants. A revised version will be published by the OECD in the first quarter of 2006. NOT FOR PUBLICATION OR GENERAL RELEASE Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii Acronyms iii Executive Summary iv 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Background 1 1.2 Purpose 1 1.3 Methodology 2 1.4 Outline 2 2. Donor approaches 3 2.1 Policies 3 2.2 Rationales 3 2.3 Policy challenges 6 2.4 From policy to practice 8 2.4 Findings and recommendations 9 3. Programming experiences 11 3.1 Types of interventions 11 3.2 Governance interventions 13 3.3 Human rights mainstreaming 16 3.4 Human rights dialogue and conditionality 22 3.5 Findings and recommendations 23 4. Preliminary lessons 26 4.1 Intrinsic value 26 4.2 Governance 28 4.3 Poverty reduction 29 4.4 Aid effectiveness 30 4.5 Findings and recommendations 32 5. Challenges and opportunities 34 5.1 Institutionalisation 34 5.2 National development partners 38 5.3 Aid policies and modalities 40 5.4 Findings and recommendations 45 6. Main findings and recommendations 48 6.1 Main findings 48 6.2 Main recommendations 49 Annexes 1. Terms of Reference 53 2. List of persons interviewed 57 3. References 60 4. Mapping process 69 5. UN Common Understanding 74 6. Background to GOVNET’s work on human rights 78 7. Case studies 82 7.1 Agencies 82 7.1.1 Sida 82 7.1.2 UNICEF 88 7.1.3 DFID 92 7.2 Country programmes 95 7.2.1 Sida Kenya 95 7.2.2 UNICEF Vietnam 97 7.2.3 DFID Peru 99 7.3 Programmes/projects 103 7.3.1 SDC and UNICEF’s Girl Child Project in Pakistan 103 7.3.2 DFID’s Right to Identity Project in Bolivia 105 7.3.3 Multi-donor: from the rule of law to access to justice 106 7.3.4 UNIFEM’s support to women’s land right’s in Central Asia 109 7.3.5 CIDA’s human rights-based approach to child protection 111 7.3.6 Review of minority rights policies and programmes 113 7.3.7 A HRBA to water programming 114 7.4 Tools 115 7.4.1 Good practices in adopting a HRBA to CCA and UNDAFs 115 7.4.2 Using a rights-based approach to achieve the maternal mortality MDG 118 7.4.3 Culturally sensitive UNFPA health programming 120 7.4.4 UNIFEM Essential Guide to Results-Based Management using a HRBA 122 7.4.5 New Zealand’s Comprehensive Implementation Plan 124 List of Boxes 1.1 In Larger Freedom 1 2.1 UN Common Understanding on a human rights-based approach 4 2.2 Sida’s democracy and human rights approach 5 2.3 Entry points for human rights in the absence of policy statements 7 2.4 Building the evidence base for human rights policies 8 3.1 Sweden’s Kenya programme 12 3.2 Bilateral support for HURIST and UNICEF 13 3.3 The European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) 14 3.4 New access to justice policies and programmes 15 3.5 DFID Peru Political and Financial Accountability Programme 16 3.6 Mainstreaming children’s rights in Sida 17 3.7 Linking human rights and gender 18 3.8 Minority and indigenous rights 19 3.9 Gender and health outcomes 19 3.10 Sida and UNICEF right to education initiatives 20 3.11 Food and land rights interventions 21 3.12 World Bank Involuntary Resettlement Policy 22 3.13 Human rights conditionality: European and Finnish examples 23 4.1 Women’s rights as an entry point to analyse land reform 26 4.2 UNICEF’s work in Vietnam 27 4.3 World Bank Social Development Strategy 27 4.4 Combining citizens’ awareness with the state’s ability to deliver 28 4.5 Child participation and CIDA 29 4.6 Water rights in Tanzania 30 4.7 UNICEF use of new data 30 4.8 The ‘justice-chain’ 31 4.9 Political party reform in Peru 31 4.10 New aid partnerships 32 5.1 Senior directives 35 5.2 Capacity building initiatives 35 5.3 HRBA to UN country assessment and programming 36 5.4 HURIST Human Rights Country Reviews 38 5.5 Contextual constraints faced by UNICEF staff 38 5.6 Linking MDGs and human rights indicators 41 5.7 Public expenditure and rights programming 42 5.8 The US Millennium Challenge Account 42 5.9 The Netherlands’ track record framework 43 5.10 UNIFEM’s HRBA to results-based management 43 5.11 Human rights and mutual accountability: DFID’s experience 44 5.12 The Swedish and Dutch models for aid policy coherence 45 List of Tables 2.1 Policy statements on human right and development 3 2.2 Donor approaches 8 i Acknowledgements This study was commissioned by the Human Rights and Development Task Team of the Governance Network of the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. It was managed by Rahel Boesch (SDC), Chair of the Task Team, Lisa Fredriksson (Sida), Co-Chair, and Sebastian Bartsch, from the GOVNET Secretariat. We would like to thank the representatives of donor agencies and DAC Secretariat who made themselves available for interviews, shared documentation, and provided guidance to process. Written or oral comments on earlier versions of the study were received from Emma Achilli (EC), Jane Alexander (DFID), Sebastian Bartsch (GOVNET), Sarita Bhatla (CIDA), Helena Bjuremalm (Sida), Akila Belembaogo (UNICEF), Rahel Boesch (Chair, SDC), Mac Darrow (OHCHR-HURIST), Lisa Fredriksson (Co-Chair, Sida), Christiane Hieronymus (BMZ), Anja-Rosa Kallmeyer (BMZ), Christoph Krieger (KfW), Siobhan McInerney-Lankford (World Bank), Juliane Osterhaus (GTZ), Garett Pratt (CIDA), Patrick Reichenmiller (World Bank), Maria-Luisa Silva (UNOHCHR), Ulrika Sundberg (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sweden), Anne Sweetser (AsDB), Birgitta Tazelaar (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands), Patrick van Weerelt (UNDP- HURIST), Lee Waldorf (UNIFEM), Franziska Walter (ADA), David Wiking (Sida), and Natalie Zend (CIDA). This study does not represent the official views of the DAC or members of the Task Team. The authors take responsibility for any errors and omissions. Laure-Hélène Piron & Tammie O’Neil Overseas Development Institute September 2005 ii Acronyms AusAid Australian Agency for International Development BMZ German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development CCA Common Country Assessment (UN) CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women CIDA Canadian International Development Agency CRC Convention on the Rights of the Child CSOs Civil society organisations DAC Development Assistance Committee (OECD) DFID Department for International Development (UK) EC European Commission EIDHR European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights GOVNET Network on Governance (DAC) HRBA Human rights-based approach HURIST Human Rights Strengthening Programme (OHCHR/UNDP) IDPs Internally displaced persons IFIs International Financial Institutions INGOs International non-governmental organisations KfW German Development Bank MDGs Millennium Development Goals Metagora Measuring Human Rights, Democracy and Governance Project (OECD-Paris 21) MoU Memorandum of Understanding MYFF Multi-Year Funding Framework (UN) NGOs Non-governmental organisations NORAD Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation NZAID New Zealand Agency for International Development OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OHCHR Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights PD/GG Participatory development/good governance (OECD DAC) PRAMs Participatory rights assessment methodologies (DFID) PRS Poverty Reduction Strategy PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper SDC Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation Sida Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency TORs Terms of reference UN United Nations UNDAF United Nations Development Assistance Framework UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNFPA United Nations Population Fund UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund UNIFEM United Nations Development Fund for Women USAID US Agency for International Development WHO World Health Organization iii Executive Summary 1. Introduction This study was commissioned by the Human Rights and Development Task Team of the OECD DAC Governance Network (GOVNET) with a view to assisting in the preparation of an action-oriented policy in 2006. It analyses and synthesises the approaches and experiences of bilateral and multilateral agencies working on human rights and development, and offers a number of practical recommendations. Human rights have become a more important aspect of development policy and programming since the end of the Cold War. The 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, the 2000 Millennium Summit, and the 2005 World Summit all recognise that development and human rights are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. The UN Secretary General’s conception of ‘in larger freedom’ encapsulates the inter-linkages between development, security and human rights. The late 1990s and early 2000s have seen the adoption of policies on human rights in the majority of agencies surveyed in this study, including both bilaterals and multilaterals such as the European Commission. Some agencies have recently developed ‘second generation’ policies, drawing on their past experiences. The UN system has been leading the way with a process of human rights mainstreaming since 1997 and, in 2003, agreement on an interagency common understanding of a human rights-based approach to development programming. This definition highlights: • the relationship between development cooperation, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and international human rights instruments; • the relevance for development programming of human rights standards and principles derived from these instruments (e.g. equality and non- discrimination; participation and inclusion; accountability and the rule of law); • the contribution that development cooperation can make to building the capacities of ‘duty-bearers’ and ‘rights-holders’ to realise and claim rights. 2. Donor approaches Human rights work is seen as both an objective in its own right and as contributing to improving the quality and effectiveness of development assistance. The intrinsic reasons include the legal obligations that emanate from the international human rights framework. States party to human rights instruments are under a duty to promote and protect human rights. The concept of human dignity underlying this normative framework drives ethical and political considerations regarding the integration of human rights into development. Human rights are also seen as constitutive of development, drawing on conceptual frameworks such as Amartya Sen’s capabilities, human development or multi-dimensional definitions of poverty. Finally, human rights are considered to contribute directly to objectives pursued by donors in the areas of good governance, poverty reduction and aid effectiveness. Agencies have adopted different rationales for working on human rights; some prefer not to work on human rights explicitly. Legal, political or empirical issues are amongst some of the challenges faced by agencies; research and multi-disciplinary exchanges can inform the further development of policies and their operationalisation. iv The integration of human rights into development can be classified using a five-part typology, as summarised in the table below. Most agencies are situated within the three central categories – project, mainstreaming, and dialogue – a shared feature of which is the positive use of human rights. A number of agencies are moving to human rights-based approaches, which requires institutional change in the provision of aid. In some agencies, an implicit integration can be identified. The most common form of assistance has traditionally been projects, though a strategic use of human rights can be found in the design of country programmes and global initiatives. Human Human rights Human rights Human rights Implicit human rights-based mainstreaming dialogue projects rights work approaches Human rights Efforts to Foreign policy Projects or Agencies may not considered ensure that and aid programmes explicitly work on constitutive human rights dialogues directly targeted human rights of the goal of are integrated include human at the issues and prefer development, into all sectors rights issues, realisation of to use other leading to a of existing aid sometimes specific rights descriptors new interventions linked to (e.g. freedom of (‘protection’, approach to (e.g. water, conditionalities. expression), ‘empowerment’ or aid and education). This Aid modalities specific groups general ‘good requiring may include ‘do and volumes (e.g. children), governance’ label). institutional no harm’ may be affected or in support of The goal, content changes. aspects. in cases of human rights and approach can significant organisations be related to other human rights (e.g. in civil explicit forms of violations. society). human rights integration rather than ‘repackaging’. 3. Donor experiences Human rights have tended to be considered part of the donor governance agenda, and the majority of direct interventions have been civil and political rights projects, often funded through civil society organisations. The shift from rule of law to access to justice policy and programming illustrates a more strategic use of human rights, influencing how situations are analysed, objectives set and aid provided. There appear to be fewer examples of a shift in the rest of the governance agenda, though a different approach to tax reform, based on the recognition of both rights and duties of citizens, illustrates the impact of a human rights perspective beyond civil and political rights projects. Human rights are being mainstreamed in other policy and programming areas, and this study offers a review of selected sectors. A number of agencies have made significant progress in the area of children’s rights, drawing on the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Human rights are also closely associated with gender equality and women’s rights initiatives, drawing on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the 1994 Beijing Platform of Action. There appear to have been more successes linking human rights to indigenous peoples than with minorities. There is a growing number of examples of health or education programming, and some initiatives in livelihoods or infrastructure interventions. These emphasise the relevance of specific human rights standards (e.g. the right to the highest attainable standard of health) and an approach based on human rights principles (e.g. promoting inclusion, participation or accountability), as v well as preventing or mitigating human rights violations associated with aid interventions. Though there is an emphasis at a policy level on the positive place of human rights, a degree of human rights conditionality remains a feature of development programmes, with the possibility in extreme cases of suspension or termination of aid following dialogue processes. The application and impact of conditionality have not been well researched and new approaches to aid policy and modalities create opportunities to revisit this area. 4. Preliminary lessons Experiences to-date have led to the identification of a set of preliminary lessons concerning the contribution, or ‘added value’, of human rights for development. These are presented to GOVNET for further discussion and testing. The intrinsic value of human rights offers development actors an explicit normative and analytical framework, grounded in a consensual global legal regime. The framework is seen as adaptable to different political and cultural environments. In some countries, more gradual and implicit approaches have enabled political constraints to be overcome. Operational human rights principles have facilitated the integration of human rights into actual programming; agencies have adopted slightly different sets of principles, but these tend to be variations of those found in the UN common understanding. Principles derived from the human rights framework can enable the integration of human rights without an explicit approach, as can be found in the work of some of the international financial institutions. However, a real danger exists of ‘rhetorical repackaging’ if the association between the normative international human rights framework and aid policies and programming is blurred or removed. Human rights also make a contribution to the governance agenda. Human rights are conceptualised in terms of ‘duty-bearers’ and ‘rights-holders’. This highlights the importance of state-citizens linkages, combining a focus on developing the capacity of states to deliver on human rights commitments with citizens’ awareness and capacity to claim their entitlements. Human rights are a source of legitimacy for state action, and put emphasis on the need for effective channels of accountability and redress. Participatory approaches are becoming more widespread in the development field, and ongoing initiatives aim to empower poor and vulnerable populations. A strategic use of human rights strengthens these trends, paying attention to the need for free, informed and meaningful participation which can be institutionalised. Human rights can enhance the design and impact of aid in terms of poverty reduction goals, building in particular on the commitments of the 1995 Copenhagen and other UN Summits. The analytical value of human rights includes the examination of the structural and root causes of poverty, such as a focus on inequality and exclusion as a major barrier for poverty reduction. It also calls for a better understanding of the context and power relations within which aid operates. The principles of equality and non-discrimination in particular require for a direct focus on excluded and marginalised individuals and groups, and underline the centrality of disaggregated data. Finally, human rights also contribute to enhancing the effectiveness of aid. Because human rights are grounded in the domestic responsibilities of states, aid agencies have found that the approach has enabled them to move away from a service vi delivery towards a capacity building role. The interdependence and indivisibility of all human rights has encouraged holistic or integrated approaches, for example greater collaboration across related sectors or institutions. Human rights are fundamentally about challenging power relations. As a result, the approach can lead to explicitly recognition of the political dimensions of aid, not in a party political sense but, as with political economy studies, in terms of bringing the political dimensions of poverty reduction to the fore. New partnerships have been built by donors as a result, finding supportive ways of facilitating domestic change processes. A number of these contributions are not new to the development world; what human rights offer is a coherent, normative framework which reinforces ‘good programming practices’ by making them non-negotiable, consistent and legitimate. 5. Challenges and opportunities There are three main challenges with which the GOVNET could engage, in terms of the further strategic integration of human rights into development. First, aid agencies need to deepen their institutionalisation of human rights considerations, looking at their systems, procedures and staff incentives and allocating adequate resources to better translate their policies into practice. Factors which have contributed to successful change in the agencies reviewed have included: • a supportive international and domestic political context; • senior level commitment, accountability and communication; • strengthening of staff capacities and incentives; • provision of new tools and procedures; and • adaptation to a decentralised context. Secondly, aid agencies have found engagement with national partners difficult because of the need to overcome weak capacities in implementing human rights and in overcoming political barriers, in particular when partners’ commitment is weak or when there is overt resistance to human rights. There is a strong overlap with the current work on fragile states which seems to have been overlooked, at least in agencies’ explicit statements to-date. Human rights share with the DAC fragile states initiative the prioritisation of the core functions of the state; legitimacy and accountability and the creation of an enabling environment. They can also offer analytical and operational approaches for donor engagement in these difficult environments. Member states’ commitment, at the UN 2005 World Summit, to ‘integrate the promotion and protection of human rights into national policies’ provides opportunities to strengthen the national ownership of human rights within the context of aid partnerships, in particular around national poverty reduction strategies. Thirdly, and of utmost relevance in the DAC context, agencies now need to strengthen the integration of human rights into thinking and practice around new aid policies and modalities. Approaches towards the Millennium Development Goals have included linking the MDGs to specific human rights standards; drawing on the Millennium Declaration, which makes explicit reference to human rights; and adopting human rights-based approaches towards meeting the MDGs. There is little written at present on aid alignment and harmonisation from a human rights perspective, although the 2005 Paris Declaration calls for harmonised approaches to cross-cutting issues. There is a great deal of congruence between human rights and a number of aid effectiveness principles, such as building national capacities, greater transparency, results-based approaches or policy coherence (for example, with vii foreign policy). Human rights analysis already affects both aid allocations and the choice of aid modalities and has a role to play in mutual accountability frameworks, in particular in holding aid agencies themselves to account. 6. Recommendations On the basis of these findings, the study offers the following recommendations to guide the work of the GOVNET Human Rights and Development Task Team. 1. Map out a process with this study, the October 2005 workshop and 2006 action- oriented policy, seen as the first in a series of steps comprising: an updated policy document; efforts to deepen learning based on current initiatives; examining new areas; undertaking joint practical actions; and later preparing practical guidance. 2. Involve a wider constituency beyond bilateral and multilateral agencies, with national government partners and civil society actors, nationally and internationally. 3. Update DAC policy statements so as to better reflect current knowledge and consensus on the integration of human rights into development and to promote good practice. 4. Invest in internal lesson-learning to better document existing experiences and to inform policy development and practices. 5. Undertake joint learning initiatives, concentrating on fewer agencies or narrower themes than in the present study. • A study of a governance sub-area where there has been a demonstrated policy and programming shift as a result of the strategic use of human rights. • A study of achievements and impacts within an identical small set of non- governance sectors or themes. • A study on human rights dialogue and the impact of conditionality. • A study identifying and documenting good examples of ‘do no harm’ policies and associated mechanisms to monitor the human rights impact of agencies. 6. Plan and undertake joint pilots at a country or regional level in order to harmonise approaches in the field and 'learn by doing'. This could include: • Collaborating more closely in ongoing programming initiatives (projects/ mainstreaming) where a multilateral or bilateral is already well advanced. • Undertaking and documenting joint dialogue efforts. • With a GOVNET mandate, piloting new harmonised approaches. 7. Collaborate in strategic DAC initiatives, giving priority to engagement in aid effectiveness debates, with the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness and Donor Practices, thus responding to paragraph 42 of the Paris Declaration. 8. Collaborate around fragile states, with the DAC Learning and Advisory Process on Difficult Partnerships and the DAC Network on Conflict, Peace and Development. 9. Collaborate around priority GOVNET themes, in particular to draw out practical lessons on the relationship between political economy and human rights analyses. 10. Continue to collaborate beyond the DAC by: • Establishing a dedicated resource centre. viii • Continuing to fund and coordinate initiatives aimed at strengthening the human rights system and mainstreaming human rights within the UN. • Continuing to invest in initiatives that facilitate exchanges and ’translation’ between the development and human rights communities. ix 1. Introduction 1.1 Background In Larger Freedom, the recent report of the United Nations Secretary General submitted to the follow-up of the Millennium Summit, notes that development, security and human rights are imperative and reinforce each other: ‘we will not enjoy development without security, we will not enjoy security without development, and we will not enjoy either without respect for human rights. Unless all these causes are advanced, none will succeed’ (UN, 2005a: para 17). The 2005 World Summit outcome document echoes this message: ‘We acknowledge that peace and security, development and human rights are the pillars of the United Nations system and the foundations for collective security and well-being. We recognize that development, peace and security and human rights are interlinked and mutually reinforcing (UN, 2005b: para 9). Box 1.1: In Larger Freedom Even if he can vote to choose his rulers, a young man with AIDS who cannot read or write and lives on the brink of starvation is not truly free. Equally, even if she earns enough to live, a woman who lives in the shadow of daily violence and has no say in how her country is run is not truly free. Larger freedom implies that men and women everywhere have the right to be governed by their own consent, under law, in a society where all individuals can, without discrimination or retribution, speak, worship and associate freely. They must also be free from want – so that the death sentences of extreme poverty and infectious disease are lifted from their lives – and free from fear – so that their lives and livelihoods are not ripped apart by violence and war. Indeed, all people have the right to security and to development (UN, 2005a: para 15). Human rights have become a more important aspect of development agency policies and programming since the end of the Cold War. The 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights marked an important turning point, reinforced by the 2000 Millennium Declaration. The UN system has been leading the way in developing a more strategic approach, beginning with the mainstreaming of human rights, announced in the 1997 UN reform programme and reinforced by the 2002 follow-up and the ‘Action 2’ initiative. In 2003, a landmark inter-agency common understanding provided a shared definition of a ‘human rights-based approach to development’. However, there has been much more limited work on human rights and development in the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD DAC), the body which brings together the major donor agencies. In the 1990s, the DAC adopted a position on governance, including on civil and political rights, and noted the need for human rights work to become more strategic (OECD, 1997). DAC documents, such as the 2001 Poverty Guidelines and work on gender and security, do make references to human rights. Nevertheless, there is no overarching policy statement or guidance on the relevance of human rights for development to assist donors in working more strategically on these issues. 1.2 Purpose Since 2003, human rights have been on the agenda of the DAC Network on Governance (GOVNET) and are currently one of only four priority themes (along with political economy; corruption; and capacity development). Significant developments, in particular within the UN system, the European Commission and a number of 1 bilateral agencies, have meant that there is a growing body of policy statements, guidelines, tools and actual programming experiences to inform a DAC process. These can contribute to building upon and updating existing DAC policy statements and guidance. The purpose of this study, as defined in the Terms of Reference (TORs), was to provide a synthesis and analysis of bilateral and multilateral policies and experiences with the integration of human rights into development programming and human rights-based approaches. It has been commissioned by the GOVNET Human Rights and Development Task Team, with a view to informing the development of a DAC action-oriented policy statement in 2006. 1.3 Methodology The TORs requested a desk review of existing material, complemented by interviews with a range of agencies, but did not envisage field work or in-depth targeted reviews. A one-day visit to the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and an informal consultation with London-based international NGOs (INGOs) were also organised. Guidance and feedback on drafts were provided to the researchers by the GOVNET Task Team at meetings in Paris and London A wealth of policy and guidance documents has been identified. The main challenge has been the relatively limited availability of well documented, independently verified programming experiences. In addition, the TORs requested that researchers start by mapping existing studies on human rights and development agencies, and synthesise their findings. While such studies do exist and have been reviewed, they tend for the most part to be rare, outdated and, at times, based on partial information or not empirically grounded. As a result, it was necessary to modify the methodology and place greater emphasis on identifying and summarising documented practical experiences, rather than synthesising and analysing existing studies. This reflects to a significant degree the fact that it is only relatively recently that development agencies have started to work on human rights more strategically; in many cases, the impact of new policies or programmes has not yet been assessed. Some agencies, such as UNICEF, have invested considerably in learning. Nonetheless, our first recommendation to the Task Team is that agencies need to invest to a greater extent in documenting their experiences and improving internal lesson-learning on human rights in order to inform their own policy development and practices. This would help constitute a stronger body of shared knowledge on human rights across development actors. 1.4 Outline The structure of the report follows the TORs. Section 2 reviews donor approaches and rationales. Section 3 provides examples of good programming practices. Section 4 draws together lessons identified in the literature to date. Section 5 identifies challenges and strategies for the further strategic use of human rights and development. Section 6 summarises the main findings and recommendations. A number of annexes complement the main report. A first set includes those associated with the methodology (Annexes 1 to 6, covering TORs, list of persons interviewed, references, document mapping, UN common understanding, and a review of DAC processes to date). A second set summarises agency case studies as well as examples of programmes and tools. 2 2. Donor approaches 2.1 Policies The trend is clear: both bilateral and multilateral agencies have adopted or are in the process of adopting or refining human rights and development policies. With regards to bilaterals, a first wave of foreign policy statements in the 1990s was often later complemented by aid agency-specific documents on human rights and development. A shared characteristic has been an emphasis on the ‘positive measures’ that donors can support through financial or technical assistance and dialogue so as to promote the realisation of human rights in partner countries. Multilaterals, such as the UN system or the European Commission (EC) have also developed new policy frameworks, though this is not the case with the international financial institutions. Table 2.1 is not intended to be comprehensive. It illustrates how the majority of agencies surveyed in this study have either adopted human rights policies or are in the process of developing or updating them in light of experiences gained over the past 10 years. By comparison, there are fewer agencies with no human rights policies at all. Agencies without explicit policies may still refer to human rights in other documents, or work on human rights in indirect ways, as is examined below. Table 2.1: Policy statements on human rights and development Status Illustrations No overall human rights policies AsDB; World Bank; WHO; USAID; AusAid Established human rights policies CIDA 1996; Finland 1996; SDC 1997; Sida 1997; UNDP 1998; UNICEF 1998; DFID 2000; EC 2001; Dutch 2001; NZAID 2002; BMZ 2004; UNFPA 2004; UNIFEM Multi Year Financing Framework 2004 References to human rights limited USAID (IDPs, trafficking, civilian protection) to sectoral policies Recently or currently developing UNICEF Mid-Term Strategic Plan 2002-2005 ‘second-generation’ policies UNDP practice notes 2003-2005 Finland 2004 Sida following Sweden’s new 2003 ‘global policy’ Dutch Ministry Action Plan 2005 SDC 2005 (recently updated 1997 policy) CIDA following new 2005 international policy Austrian Development Cooperation Inter-agency or multilateral UN Vienna Human Rights Declaration and agreements on or referencing human Programme of Action, 1993 rights and development DAC Ad Hoc Working Group on PD/GG Report, 1997 UN Millennium Declaration, 2000 DAC Poverty Guidelines, 2001 UN Inter-Agency Common Understanding, 2003 UN 2005 World Summit Outcome Document 2.2 Rationales Why have agencies adopted such policies? The main explanatory factor is the changing international context. Human rights remained a highly politicised issue during the Cold War, with a division between states which prioritised civil and political rights and those which promoted economic, social and cultural rights. At the 1993 3 Vienna World Conference, a consensus was reached which recognised that ‘All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated’ (UN, 1993: para 5), implying that states and their aid agencies should not prioritise one set of rights over the other. The Vienna Consensus also affirmed that: ‘Democracy, development and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms are interdependent and mutually reinforcing […] The international community should support the strengthening and promoting of democracy, development and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in the entire world.’ (UN, 1993: para 8.) There are two main rationales for agencies’ work on human rights as part of development cooperation. Most agencies agree with the 1997 DAC statement that: ‘Respect for human rights is seen as an objective in its own right but also as a critical factor for the longer-term sustainability of development activities.’ (DAC, 1997:8.) Intrinsic rationale Intrinsic reasons start from legal obligations emanating from the international human rights framework for the protection of the equal dignity of all human beings. These obligations are grounded in a universal moral framework of common values recently reaffirmed at the 2005 UN World Summit, including freedom, equality, solidarity and tolerance. All states party to the relevant international human rights instruments are under a duty to promote and protect human rights, including through international cooperation. The UN, which is the guarantor of the international human rights system, has since 1997 worked to mainstream human rights in all its activities. The 2005 UN summit supported the further mainstreaming of human rights throughout the UN system, including strengthening the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN, 2005b). The 2003 UN inter-agency definition of a ‘human rights-based approach’ (HRBA) explicitly states that development cooperation should further the realisation of human rights as laid out in international human rights instruments (see Box 2.1). A number of bilateral agencies have also adopted the view that development and human rights are interlinked and that aid should be used in pursuance of human rights objectives. Box 2.1: UN Common Understanding on a human rights-based approach 1. All programmes of development cooperation, policies and technical assistance should further the realisation of human rights as laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments. 2. Human rights standards contained in, and principles derived from, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments guide all development cooperation and programming in all sectors and in all phases of the programming process. 3. Development cooperation contributes to the development of the capacities of ‘duty- bearers’ to meet their obligations and/or of ‘rights-holders’ to claim their rights. 4. The human rights principles identified in this agreement are: universality and inalienability; indivisibility; inter-dependence and interrelatedness; equality and non-discrimination; participation and inclusion; and accountability and rule of law. Not all aid agencies accept that they are under a legal obligation to promote and respect human rights through their assistance, and intrinsic arguments are not limited to legal ones: the concept of humanity underlying the human rights framework is a strong factor behind most policies. Ethical arguments thus drive a positive association between human rights and aid, centred around human dignity and the need to combat poverty. Political factors can also encourage agencies to integrate human rights, for example public reactions to the provision of substantial amounts of 4 aid to governments using excessive force against their own citizens or involved in ethnic discrimination. Intrinsic reasons also include ‘constitutive’ arguments (Sen, 1999), where the realisation of human rights is seen as constitutive of development: • Drawing on Sen’s capabilities framework, the 2000 UNDP Human Development Report highlights the common vision and common purpose of human development and human rights: ‘to secure the freedom, well-being and dignity of all people everywhere’ (UNDP, 2000:1). • The multi-dimensional definition of poverty in the 2001 DAC Poverty Guidelines maps onto the various human rights codified under the international framework. • The DAC Poverty Guidelines and other DAC documents describe human rights, alongside governance, democracy and the rule of law, as part of the ‘qualitative’ elements of development. • The 2000 Voices of the Poor study confirmed that poor people themselves cared about civil and political rights, such as safety and security, as much as food and water, and that these were legitimate poverty reduction goals. As aid agencies have become more familiar with the human rights framework, human rights organisations too have started to address poverty and development more directly. Under Mary Robinson, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) took a particular interest in poverty reduction, and international human rights NGOs are increasingly addressing economic, social and cultural rights. Instrumental rationale Instrumental reasons recognise the place of the international human rights framework but in addition argue that a focus on human rights can improve development aid. This can be categorised under three headings. Starting from a traditional focus on civil and political rights, the integration of human rights in development is often seen as a contributing to good governance. For some agencies, human rights are defined as a sub-category of governance (e.g. SDC, Austria, CIDA and many others). For example, Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) locates human rights under the priority strategy ‘democracy, civil society, public administration, including the promotion of human rights’ (GTZ, 2004). For other agencies, human rights, democracy and the rule of law are seen as additional domains to a more ‘technical’ core definition of governance around the management of public resources (EC, 2001). The human rights principles of accountability, rule of law and participation are seen as contributing to more effective, legitimate and accountable governance (see Box 2.2). Box 2.2: Sida’s democracy and human rights approach Sida’s approach closely links democracy and human rights objectives. It considers that poverty, understood in its broadest sense, is a state where almost all human rights are violated, and that a lack of democracy leads to greater poverty in the long term. Under the umbrella of ‘democratic governance’, Sida supports initiatives on human rights, democratisation, rule of law, people’s participation and good governance, all of which are seen to contribute to poverty reduction and to highlight the political dimensions of development. It is also argued that integrating human rights into development cooperation helps to achieve more effective poverty reduction and social outcomes. A commitment to 5 human rights calls for urgent steps to tackle extreme poverty and social exclusion, which violate human dignity and the human rights of the poorest (UN, 1993: para 14). The 1995 Copenhagen Summit on Social Development set out international commitments in this area. A focus on vulnerable and excluded groups and the principles of universality, equality and non-discrimination, as well as participation and inclusion, are particularly relevant here. DFID (2000) has emphasised an empowerment approach aimed at participation, inclusion and realising the rights of the very poorest. SDC’s recently updated policy (2005) strengthens its commitment to empowerment and participation by explicit reference to human rights. The World Bank recent social development policy (2005a) is based on its experience that inclusion, cohesion and accountability make development interventions more effective and sustainable. Finally, agency statements often argue that a focus on human rights can improve the coherence, quality and effectiveness of aid. For example, Dutch policy highlights the links between human rights, foreign policy and development, and the use of political instruments to achieve both human rights and development objectives (Netherlands, 2004). Dutch policy also echoes In Larger Freedom on the interdependence of human rights, development and security (UN, 2005a). 2.3 Policy challenges The rationales put forward for working on human rights and development are not accepted to the same degree by all donor agencies. Some agencies mention legal constraints. For example, some are concerned that there may be conflicts with their mandate if they work explicitly on human rights and cite states' legal obligations. This is the case for the World Bank, for example, where human rights have traditionally been seen as ‘political’, or it is argued that existing human development initiatives already contribute to economic and social rights without needing to develop a new policy framework (World Bank, 1998). In general, Bank policies rarely mention the human rights framework explicitly, although borrowing country environmental obligations under international law are mentioned in the Bank's Operational Policies on Environmental Assessment (OP4.01). This suggests that it is possible for the Bank to make reference to borrowing countries' other obligations under international law, including human rights obligations. The Bank’s General Counsel has recently put forward personal preliminary thoughts on the Articles of Agreements. He notes how the Bank’s multidimensional conception of poverty and social equity has strong human rights dimensions, and that, in his opinion, the Bank ‘can and should take into account human rights in the process it uses and the instruments it relies on to make economic decisions’. (Danino, 2005:12). Legal constraints are often related to political ones: domestic political environments in donor countries may be more or less conducive to grounding aid in an international human rights framework. For example, Sweden’s new global policy, which requires that a ‘rights perspective’ be integrated into all aspects of foreign policy including aid, contrasts with that of the USA, where there is a more selective endorsement of the international human rights framework, illustrated by the non-ratification of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and other international instruments. This means that USAID’s poverty reduction efforts cannot be conceptualised from the perspective of economic and social rights and state obligations. 6 Even in such circumstances, aid agencies have still been working either on aspects of the human rights agenda (either narrowly on civil or political rights, or without using an explicit human rights language), or are currently considering how to adapt their policy frameworks. A process of stocktaking or starting to mainstream human rights work without an overarching policy are some of the entry points (see Box 2.3). Box 2.3: Entry points for human rights in the absence of policy statements ‘Protection from abuse’, whether in international conflicts, people trafficking, internally displaced persons (IDPs) or the rule of law, is an entry point for USAID, which has recently compiled a list of human rights interventions and has appointed human rights advisors in its Office of Transition Initiatives. The World Health Organisation has not adopted an overarching policy, but its Ethics, Trade, Human Rights and Health Law Department is increasing WHO’s understanding of human rights in relation to health. This is facilitated by reference to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental right in the WHO 1946 Constitution. The Department has produced numerous publications, such as 25 frequently asked questions on human rights and health, and comic strips on human rights and health or HIV/AIDS. There are also country-level initiatives. For example, Sida is sponsoring a Junior Professional Officer to work in the Uganda WHO Country Office on the right to health. There are a number of important ongoing initiatives within the World Bank, and a human rights working group has been established in the Legal Vice-Presidency. The Bank’s General Counsel has put forward proposals on how the Articles of Agreement could be interpreted differently and permit explicit human rights work (Danino, 2005). A human rights matrix maps out how existing Bank policies, areas of activities and projects (loans, grants, etc.) are related to specific human rights standards as set out in the international bill of rights (World Bank, 2005b). In addition, World Bank conceptual frameworks (e.g. empowerment), recent research reports (e.g. equity in the World Development Report 2006), or interventions towards particular social groups (e.g. indigenous peoples) have strong human rights content, even if they do not refer explicitly to the international human rights framework and state obligations. Some agencies that have not adopted human rights policies have done so for pragmatic reasons. For example, Australia engages in human rights dialogue and funds human rights projects, such as support to national and regional human rights institutions, but does not have a separate policy for AusAid. It considers that the language of human rights adds limited value to the current governance agenda (AusAid, 2001). There are a number of empirical challenges to the further development or implementation of agencies’ human rights policies. Some aid agency staff consider that aid or national policies based on human rights standards and principles may constrain, rather than facilitate, poverty reduction, conflict resolution or other desirable objectives. Examples include: the need to achieve peace or health outcomes, rather than pay attention to the processes to reach those outcomes; the potentially negative impacts on growth of social spending targeted to achieve economic and social rights goals; or the incentives impacts of labour standards. Pragmatic and empirical challenges are more amenable to evidence-based discussions than legal and political ones. Research and multi-disciplinary exchanges can inform the further development of policies and their operationalisation so as to reach a wider set of agency staff and partners (see Box 2.4). 7 Box 2.4: Building the evidence base for human rights policies The Asia-Pacific Regional Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has developed a project to identify programmes and projects of the UN, NGOs, development cooperation agencies and governments in the Asia-Pacific region that have tried to use the human rights approach, to write up the lessons learned, create an internet-based database of projects and to provide assistance to UNDP and other UN agencies. It has already established the Practitioners’ Forum on Human Rights in Development, which meets quarterly in Bangkok, bringing together about 40 development practitioners from UN agencies, NGOs and development cooperation agencies, to exchange practical experiences on integrating human rights into development programmes. Associated activities include: a searchable, internet-based Human Rights Approach to Development Database; a region-wide Electronic Forum on Human Rights in Development; a national-level Practitioners’ Fora; a common fund to finance work of the Forum; and an occasional paper series. Underway is an initiative to identify and write up lessons learned with country case studies, such as on the Right to Food Campaign in India which examines entitlement-oriented rights-based strategies used to reclaim the right to food for vulnerable and marginalised groups. The World Bank is investing in empirical work to demonstrate the links between human rights and growth in order to debunk the perception that human rights are inimical to growth and provide justifications that Bank staff, who are predominantly economists, will accept. The World Bank Institute has found that ‘there are consistent, statistically significant and empirically large effects of civil liberties on investment project rates of return’, that state capture impairs socioeconomic development and that ‘the extent of capture and crony bias is related to the degree of civil liberties in a country’ (Kaufman, 2004:9-15). Various research projects are underway in the Legal Department on human rights indicators, economic justifications for the protection of human rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. 2.4 From policy to practice There is a range of approaches to implementing agencies’ policies, reflecting their mandates, policy frameworks and principal modes of engagement. Table 2.2 offers a framework to categorise them, under a broad label of ‘integration’ of human rights. Table 2.2: Donor approaches Human Human rights Human rights Human rights Implicit human rights-based mainstreaming dialogue projects rights work approaches Human rights Efforts to Foreign policy Projects or Agencies may not considered ensure that and aid programmes explicitly work on constitutive human rights dialogues directly targeted human rights of the goal of are integrated include human at the issues and prefer development, into all sectors rights issues, realisation of to use other leading to a of existing aid sometimes specific rights descriptors new interventions linked to (e.g. freedom of (‘protection’, approach to (e.g. water, conditionalities. expression), ‘empowerment’ or aid and education). This Aid modalities specific groups general ‘good requiring may include ‘do and volumes (e.g. children), governance’ label). institutional no harm’ may be affected or in support of The goal, content changes. aspects. in cases of human rights and approach can significant organisations be related to other human rights (e.g. in civil explicit forms of violations. society). human rights integration rather than ‘repackaging’. 8 Most common have been human rights projects, usually linked to the promotion and protection of civil and political rights. Some agencies have undertaken commitments to human rights mainstreaming, which usually leads to working on human rights issues in non-governance sectors. Most bilateral aid agencies also undertake some form of human rights dialogue and conditionality, often linked to their foreign policies. Human rights-based approaches indicate a deeper degree of commitment to systematically taking human rights into account. This, when taken to its logical conclusion, leads to the need to transform institutional practices. Projects, sectoral mainstreaming and dialogue/conditionality are part of the implementation menu, but the overall rationale is usually different: in the UN definition, human rights are explicitly part of the goal of development assistance, leading to a different approach to the provision of aid. As one of the few recent book-length examinations of human rights and development notes: ‘At the highest level of integration, agency mandates are redefined in human rights terms, seeking to create a more structural and holistic approach to development and social change. Here we face a fundamental rethinking of the entire development practice: its ideology, its partners, its aims, its processes, its systems and procedures’ (Uvin, 2004:50). In addition to the UN system, a significant number of bilateral agencies have adopted policies that are described as HRBAs. For some, this has not led to a redefinition of their mandates in human rights terms; the human rights policy is one amongst many, and is seen as contributing to the achievement of poverty reduction and empowerment. The boundary between human rights mainstreaming and HRBA is also not watertight, as genuine efforts to mainstream across sectors rapidly leads to taking human rights into account more systematically across the organisation. NZAID’s human rights mainstreaming action plan, for example, is very close to the UN’s definition of what a HRBA entails, whereas some agencies committed to HRBA in their policy papers have not necessarily invested as much in institutional transformation as has NZAID (see Annex 7.4.5). Finally, some agencies are not explicitly using a human rights framework at a policy level, but aspects of their policies or programming are consistent with what a HRBA would call for, such as a focus on empowerment and inclusion; otherwise, there may be strong congruencies at a sectoral level, for example with civilian protection or gender. 2.5 Findings and recommendations A growing number of bilateral and multilateral aid agencies have adopted human rights policies over the past 10 years. Rationales include both the intrinsic and the instrumental value of human rights for development. In addition to normative justifications grounded in the international human rights framework, human rights are seen to contribute to governance, poverty reduction and aid effectiveness objectives. Commonalities include attempts to use human rights positively, through projects, mainstreaming or dialogue, though the negative application of human rights conditionality remains a characteristic. A smaller number of agencies are moving to human rights-based approaches: they consider that human rights are constitutive of the goal of development and are committed to the institutional change required to align their aid practices with this new approach. Legal, political and empirical challenges have affected the development of human rights policies, with a demand for more evidence of the impact of human rights on the achievement of development objectives, such as poverty reduction. 9 Policy developments within the DAC do not appear to reflect changes within DAC members' policy frameworks, with seemingly little progress since the 1997 Ad Hoc Working Group Report and the 2001 Poverty Guidelines. (This is examined in more detail in Annex 6). The current GOVNET Human Rights and Development Task Team is therefore an important initiative, which offers the possibility of updating DAC statements and policies and undertaking joint actions with a view to developing guidance based on good practices. The diversity of agencies’ rationales and approaches suggests that the Task Team needs to set out a process to build consensus across GOVNET and the DAC, being clear about the purpose and audience of the proposed action-oriented policy. It would seem reasonable to see this study, the October 2005 workshop and 2006 action- oriented policy, as the first steps in a series, with a view to the more systematic, strategic and harmonised integration of human rights into development cooperation. 10 3. Programming experiences This section illustrates how aid agencies have worked on human rights issues at a programming, as opposed to a policy or institutional, level. Following a brief review of the most common levels and types of programming, it examines three aspects of human rights integration: within governance, within mainstreaming and within conditionality. It is not intended to be in any way an exhaustive review of all existing experiences, and it has not been possible to include some key agencies, such as the International Labour Organisation, in the survey. Nor does it suggest good practices. Illustrations in this section and the annexes rely on the information submitted to the research team within the project’s timeframe. The choice of examples results from the availability of suitable and recent documented experiences (such as Piron and Watkins, 2004, on DFID) and does not imply the absence of similar initiatives in other agencies. For example, UNICEF’s project to strengthen its HRBA to programming (see Box 3.2) has led to considerable investments in learning, providing the information base to track development within UNICEF and illustrate programming experiences. 3.1 Types and levels of interventions Projects The most traditional form of donor support for human rights consists in stand-alone human rights projects or programmes. These may aim to build the capacity of human rights organisations, to provide human rights training or to support the ratification of treaties and legal reform, with the objective of improving specific human rights outcomes. The majority of human rights projects address governance as a specific sector, and are examined in Section 3.2. Support to civil society organisations is amongst the most common form of direct intervention, working through them to build the capacity of rights-holders to claim and enforce their rights and to mobilise for social change. Recipients are usually local or international NGOs receiving resources through bilateral or multilateral human rights funds managed by embassies or donor agencies. Less often, sectoral programmes may have civil society components, addressing the ‘demand’ side of reform. In addition to targeted human rights funds, donor guidelines can create incentives for CSOs to work on human rights issues, or adopt HRBA (e.g. DFID Programme Partnership Agreements with UK-based INGOs). Country programmes A more strategic form of human rights' support attempts to integrate human rights in the design of a bilateral/multilateral country strategy and in the various interventions derived from it. Annexes provide illustrations of three country programmes: Sida in Kenya, UNICEF in Vietnam, and DFID in Peru. In addition to direct interventions and strategies, country-level approaches create opportunities to mainstream human rights into other sectors, for example encouraging a focus on human rights principles (e.g. participation and accountability) in more technical areas (e.g. roads or water), or supporting the realisation of economic and social rights (e.g. labour standards or social protection). 11 The relevance of human rights also comes to the fore in policy dialogue, and in the use of human rights criteria in the selection of partner countries and the nature of aid modalities. While dialogue can be positive and help identify areas for further donor support, negative human rights conditionality is also sometimes applied at this level. Box 3.1: Sweden’s Kenya programme In Kenya, the Swedish Embassy is working on human rights and democracy at three levels. First, a range of direct interventions includes work in the Governance, Justice, Law and Order sector programme. Secondly, a mainstreaming project promotes the integration of human rights into a number of sectors. Thirdly, the Embassy is supporting a national dialogue on various forms of inequalities, with the Ambassador playing an important role In 2003, the Mainstreaming in Action Project (MAINIAC) was set up in order to better integrate human rights and democracy principles into sectoral programmes in Kenya. It aims to build the capacity of key actors to: identify and use human rights mainstreaming indicators; undertake implementation in a manner that promotes mainstreaming; participate in dialogue; and develop an adequate monitoring and evaluation system. The sectors are: roads; water; health; integrated land and urban; governance, justice, law and order; and agriculture. A network of local resources persons has been developed to inform the programming process, and government agencies, such as the Kenya National Human Rights Commission, are actively engaged, as was demonstrated by a workshop in April 2005. During the period of KANU rule, the Swedish government was working on developing a coherent ‘dialogue strategy’ in Kenya. Following the 2002 elections and the new political environment, a project was established within the Swedish Embassy with the goal of putting ‘equality for growth’ on the public agenda, working with CSOs/research bodies, media, other donors and decision-makers in the Executive and Parliament. Three forms of inequalities have been highlighted: gender, regional and income. A MoU was established between the Ministry for Planning and National Development, the Society for International Development (an implementing NGO) and the Embassy. The project helped the Ministry disseminate its poverty map to line ministries. The Ambassador has been writing in the press on inequality, which has now become a national issue. A national conference is being planned for 2006. Global initiatives Finally, donors have promoted the integration of human rights and development well beyond country programmes and direct interventions, by funding international events, research and networking at a regional or global level. Funding multilateral organisations has been a fruitful area for bilaterals. This has been the case for the UN system in particular, such as around the HURIST initiative (see Box 3.2), and funding for the Princeton (2001) and Stamford (2003) interagency consultations which elaborated the UN common understanding. Bilaterals have also been working with development banks, which less often have explicitly referenced human rights. For example, the World Bank Social Development Strategy (2005) mentions support from Finland, Norway and the Netherlands on building donor and client country capacity for social development, including greater cooperation within the Bank and with the UN; the Japan Social Development Fund, which has supported social accountability initiatives; and cooperation with GTZ and DFID on Poverty and Social Impact Assessments. 12 Box 3.2: Bilateral support for HURIST and UNICEF HURIST, the UNDP-OHCHR Global Human Rights Strengthening Programme, has received contributions from a wide range of bilateral agencies, demonstrating their commitment to mainstreaming human rights within the UN system: Finland, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Canada, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland and the UK. With a budget of $8 million over six years and the objective of strengthening the work of UNDP in the field of human rights, the programme has supported the placement of UN volunteers working on human rights at country level, the preparation of national human rights action plans, country level programming support as well as policy development, piloting, preparation of tools and human rights programme reviews. A recent evaluation concluded that HURIST had made significant contributions to creating a UN consensus on human rights-based approaches. Through the ‘Project Strengthening UNICEF Human Rights-Based Programming’, started in 2000 and now in its second phase, UNICEF has been undertaking institutional learning as the approach is being rolled-out. This has included revising programming guidelines, methodologies and training materials; supporting regional and country-level staff; and facilitating learning across the agency. By 2005, amongst many other achievements, 35 case studies and the consolidated analysis of those studies had been completed; two global consultations had been held; and a number of annual UNICEF reviews of country programmes as well as the Mid-Term Review of the MTSP 2002-2005 had been undertaken. Activities are being implemented thanks to DFID support as well as to UNICEF regular resources, as this project is fully integrated in UNICEF’s work at headquarters, regional and country levels. The project is currently being evaluated by an independent team, to assess to what extent it has contributed to a systematically increased capacity in UNICEF. 3.2 Governance interventions Another lens through which to examine donor experiences consists in looking thematically at the content and objectives of donor interventions. Governance is the sector most closely associated with human rights, and this is where the majority of aid agencies locate the issue institutionally. As this sub-section shows, there has been a wide range of civil and political rights projects, but much less work to-date on integrating human rights into other governance areas, such as public sector reform or financial management. Civil and political rights The majority of direct human rights interventions have addressed civil and political rights issues, often under a governance heading, linked to democracy and the rule of law. One illustration is the European Initiative for Human Rights and Democracy (see Box 3.3). Uvin (2004:83-9) estimates that this type of aid now accounts for about 10% of aid budgets. Topics may include specifics rights, such as freedom of expression (e.g. media projects) or due process (e.g. rule of law programmes). Options include investing in organisations (e.g. national human rights institutions), processes and procedures (e.g. democratisation, including elections, parties, civic education) and structures (e.g. capacity building of state or civil society). It is well beyond the scope of this study to synthesise and analyse donor experiences in all these domains. The wide range of subject areas and countries as well as the methodological difficulties of evaluating such interventions would require separate studies (which the GOVNET could commission). Democracy support has been more thoroughly investigated, but Carothers concludes that there is still little systematic knowledge in this area (Carothers, 1999). He reaches a similar conclusion in a more recent piece on rule of law initiatives (Carothers, 2003). 13 Box 3.3: The European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) Created in 1994, the EIDHR is the EU’s main financial instrument to implement its human rights and democracy policy, complementing geographic cooperation programmes and foreign policy tools. It funds predominantly civil society and non-governmental organisations and does not require the consent or involvement of state authorities. This allows it to operate in sensitive political contexts. During 2002-2004 nearly €327 million financed: • democracy, governance and the rule of law (67%): civil society strengthening, human rights education and awareness raising, freedom of expression/media, elections, rule of law, governance, conflict • abolition of the death penalty (2%) • torture, impunity and international justice (15%) • racism, minorities and indigenous peoples (10.5%) An impact assessment concluded that 80% of respondents found the EIDHR had good or very good impacts and had strengthened the capacity of CSOs. It had been less effective with regards to gender equality, and needed to be more flexible and more responsive, and improve its procedures. Two-thirds of its implementing partners came from Northern organisations. Turning to human rights projects more narrowly, policy papers and studies reviewed for this report repeatedly highlight the following messages: • There is a need to go beyond stand-alone civil and political rights projects and move to sectoral programming and mainstreaming. • Support should not be limited to training and advocacy efforts but identify strategic entry points for sustainable change and capacity development. • Interventions in these domains are inherently slow and political as they challenge the use of state power and cultural or social norms. Access to justice It is possible to document a trend across a number of agencies in provision of assistance in the rule of law area, towards an ‘access to justice approach’ which can be associated with a more strategic use of human rights. Traditional rule of law interventions have focused on institution building (e.g. courts, prisons, ministries, lawyers). These can contribute to the realisation of specific rights and standards (e.g. provision of legal representation to defendants, reducing court delays and time on remand). They also contribute more generally to institutionalising the human rights principles of accountability and the rule of law. By including ‘access to justice’ in their policy documents and increasingly in their programmes, donors have started to transform the way in which they analyse situations, set objectives and provide assistance (Annex 7.3.3 and Box 3.4). Characteristics include: • A people-centred perspective, not limiting interventions to enhancing the effectiveness of institutions but also starting from the experiences of poor people themselves, for example through perception surveys. • Linking demand and supply activities, in particular the ability of poor and marginalised people to claim rights through the courts, and of the courts to deliver appropriate services to meet users’ needs. • Attention to the specific needs of women, juveniles, isolated populations, minorities or indigenous peoples (e.g. location, language used, simplification of procedures, cultural compatibility, best interest of the child, etc.). • Valuing participatory research to identify poor people’s priorities and pilots to test new ways of overcoming barriers. 14  • The use of explicit human rights or constitutional standards to set goals and benchmarks (e.g. juvenile diversion in the Convention on the Rights of the Child; civil liberties in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). • The shift not necessarily requiring explicit reference to human rights mainstreaming or a HRBA. While UNDP describes its policy in terms of implementing an HRBA, DFID does not explicitly do so and, for USAID or the World Bank, access to justice is one possible area of intervention. • A resource-intensive approach. Lessons from UNDP Asia-Pacific do indicate that the approach is resource intensive, in terms of staff time and commitment in donor agencies, timescale, and the need to identify new partners. Box 3.4: New access to justice policies and programmes UNDP’s Access to Justice policy emphasises the equal ability of all to use justice services. In the Asia-Pacific region, it is assisting poor people overcome barriers to access, through a process grounded in research, participation and piloting. SDC is aiming to adopt a more systematic HRBA to justice reform. In South Africa, in partnership with UNDP, it has already successfully supported a Child Justice Project which has assisted in developing new procedures and frameworks for juvenile diversion. Austria has also been supporting child justice work, for example in Namibia. USAID rule of law projects aim to improve the independence and performance of the judiciary, effective criminal prosecution and a reduction in delays, which contribute to meeting civil rights objectives. In Bolivia, an access to justice approach has led to the establishment of Integrated Justice Centres, providing more appropriate services for indigenous rural populations. Other governance dimensions On the basis of the information submitted to this review, there appear to be fewer examples of a policy shift impacting on programming in other aspects of governance, such as explicit references to human rights in public expenditure management, public sector reform or anti-corruption initiatives. This is possibly because human rights standards are less commonly used in these areas, though they are clearly relevant: non-discrimination in service provision; labour standards in public service reform; or rule of law and accountability for anti-corruption measures. Some agencies are starting to address this gap: for example, with HURIST support, UNDP has been preparing a wealth of new policies and practice notes (including on access to justice, parliaments, police, decentralised governance, national human rights institutions, and the right to information); and OHCHR and UNDP organised an international seminar on human rights and governance in Seoul in 2004. Documented examples also suggest that human rights principles have sometimes helped agencies move beyond civil/political rights and CSO projects in their governance portfolios. Though not always phrased in a human rights language, there appear to be a growing number of interventions paying attention to: institutionalising participation; providing accountability and redress; and helping to establish a different relationship between the state and citizens, based on recognition of both rights and duties. DFID Peru’s work on tax reform is innovative in this regard (see Box 3.5). 15 Box 3.5 DFID Peru Political and Financial Accountability Programme The programme encourages political inclusion through the review of fiscal issues, notably tax reform and budget transparency, in order to encourage greater accountability and responsiveness to poor people. It focuses on the equity potential and accountability functions of fiscal policy, in particular through ensuring that resources reach groups identified as excluded, on the expenditure side, and promoting the perspective that paying taxes is not only a duty but that it also creates rights, on the revenue generation side. As such, the programme introduces a focus on equity and accountability, rather than simply efficiency, into revenue policy and administration (see Annex 7.2.3 for more on DFID Peru). 3.3 Human rights mainstreaming Donors’ human rights policies refer increasingly to the need to mainstream human rights in other programming areas, or to adopt a HRBA. This is difficult when human rights are located within ‘governance units’, creating incentives to focus on civil and political rights interventions. This sub-section offers illustrations of some sectors where this has been undertaken, although, as with the governance sub-section, it is beyond the scope of this study to do so systematically or to attempt to start documenting good practices or sector-specific lessons. Children’s rights A significant number of agencies have invested in children’s rights. In addition to UNICEF or NGOs such as the Save the Children alliance, a range of bilateral agencies have developed approaches to children, based on the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC). For example, CIDA’s efforts to integrate a human rights perspective is well illustrated through its work on a rights-based approach to child protection (see Annex 7.3.5) and Sida has made significant progress in mainstreaming a child rights perspective (see Box 3.6). The reasons seem to be: • Children’s rights are often perceived as less controversial (though some areas such as child participation or rights within the family can be particularly challenging). • The CRC has been nearly universally ratified for many years, which has created opportunities for engagement in a wide range of countries, even where a human rights language is usually not well accepted, for example Vietnam. • The CRC provides a useful series of entry points for programming, as it covers social and economic rights as well as civil and political rights. Particularly valuable operationally are the four CRC principles: best interest of the child; non-discrimination; right to life, survival and development; and the right to participation. • Children’s rights are also a way of engaging in a wide range of sectors by providing a clear target group, such as health (child mortality MDG); education and gender equality (by focusing on the girl child and the gender parity MDG); or protection, juvenile justice, child labour, etc. 16 Box 3.6: Mainstreaming children’s rights in Sida In 2003, Sida reported back to government on how it had implemented the 2001 10-point programme of the children’s rights government communication. This report shows how Sida has been able to mainstream a child rights perspective. • Sida’s policy documents have increasingly emphasised children’s rights. In 1999, a position paper ‘The Rights of the Child in Swedish Development Cooperation’ was issued to serve as guidelines. The 2002 ‘Perspectives on Poverty’ give attention to children and adolescents in vulnerable positions. • Guidance documents reflect children’s rights. The updating of ‘Sida at work’ was also important: whereas children were not mentioned in the 1997 version, the updated version facilitated the mainstreaming of children’s rights by referencing the position paper. • A child rights perspective is becoming more visible in country strategies, such as in the regional South America strategy and Zambia country strategy. The 2001 guidelines for country strategy, which require paying attention to children’s rights, were seen as a contributor to this process. • Sida’s cooperation with the UN system pays particular attention to children’s rights. Support to WHO is based on a human rights perspective paying particular attention to women and children, for example in the areas of maternal mortality and the right to sexual and reproductive health. Its support to the ILO includes a project on ‘Understanding Children’s Work and its Impact’. • The review also documents Sida’s policy and programmatic contribution to the selected four strategic areas. These integrate the principles of the best interest of the child, gender and non-discrimination, but participation was more difficult to achieve. • Sida exerts international influence on children’s rights by working with the UN, EU and other bilaterals. • UNICEF is Sida’s largest channel, with responsibility for 40 programmes in partner countries. Swedish NGOs also receive Sida funding and work with local organisations, in particular Swedish Save the Children. • The review showed the difficulty of quantifying resources allocated to mainstreaming children’s rights beyond support to UNICEF and Save the Children. • This effort had been led by the equivalent of one full-time post in the Democratic Governance Division with responsibility for training, developing material and acting as advisers and a network of Sida programme officers who have received basic training in children’s rights. Women’s rights and gender equality There is a great deal of overlap between the growing body of work on gender equality and the integration of human rights. Most donor agencies have adopted gender equality policies requiring both gender mainstreaming and interventions directly targeted at women. The approaches share a great deal at a normative and conceptual level: non-discrimination, including gender equality, is a fundamental human rights principle; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) provides a clear framework and monitoring mechanism aimed at eliminating gender-based discrimination; and the 1994 Beijing Declaration is the foundation for a wide range of national initiatives. The DAC Guidelines for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Development Cooperation (1998) explicitly refer to these frameworks. There is also a DAC GENDERNET ‘tipsheet’ on human rights and gender, funded by AusAid. At a programming level, the content of interventions is often very similar and, as a number of illustrations from this study demonstrate, women’s rights are central to the systematic integration of human rights in aid (see Box 3.7). Women in development, and gender policies and programmes, are also a way of working on human rights without explicit overarching human rights policies. The World Bank, for example, periodically undertakes gender assessments to inform policy dialogue and country assistance strategies. Gender is also one of the criteria used in the World Bank’s 17 Country Policy and Institutional Analysis, which includes ratification of CEDAW as a factor for consideration. USAID has undertaken a significant amount of work on women in development, including on anti-trafficking, women’s legal rights, trade liberalisation and education. The approach focuses on overcoming obstacles to opportunities rather than explicit human rights programming. In some agencies, there are opportunities for greater collaboration between human rights and gender equality work: for example, within Sida, gender experts were not a core part of the democracy and human rights team; UNICEF is only recently integrating its gender and human rights advisory capacity more closely into its Global Policy Section. It is beyond the scope of this study to review experiences with gender equality across agencies. A number of recent evaluations and reviews identify the difficulties in putting gender mainstreaming into practice and require renewed efforts (Sida, 2002; EC, 2003; DFID, 2004). These lessons are also applicable in the field of human rights, and point to the timeframe required for seeing results from mainstreaming policies aimed at tackling power inequalities. There could thus be potentially fruitful exchanges between GOVNET and DAC’s GENDERNET. Box 3.7: Linking human rights and gender The 2002 review of the implementation of UNICEF’s HRBA found that a number of Country Offices were trying to mainstream gender, but that there were few examples of this being done systematically. The majority of interventions responded to the needs of women, such as in the area of safe motherhood, required by women as mothers rather than as rights-holders. The mantra ‘children and women’ was seen as unhelpful, as it did not necessarily entail programming for women’s rights. DFID programming in Bangladesh has evolved over time, starting with the thematic objective: ‘improvements in the position of women in society’. More recently, it adopted ‘girls and women first’ as the organising principle of the country strategy, integrating gender equality in all the country programme’s priority areas, including promoting generally inclusive interventions; supporting more effective demand for the realisation of rights; and highlighting more responsive and accountable government. The European Commission explicitly frames gender inequality within the context of the denial of human rights and its two-fold approach includes both gender mainstreaming and specific measures for women. In 2003 the EC commissioned an evaluation to assess how successfully gender had been integrated into its development cooperation. Synergies between gender and other cross-cutting issues, in particular human rights and democracy, have been relatively well-developed, with clear commitments to the rights of women and the girl child, Beijing principles and specific objectives relating to, for instance, political participation, traditional practices etc. However, objectives and approaches that link gender equality and human rights and development have yet to be developed. The report identifies other challenges such as: a low level of awareness of the gender policy amongst staff and partners; the existence of insufficient resources, capacity and the necessary institutional culture to support mainstreaming; and the absence of clear guidelines on operationalisation in order to support a coherent approach to gender mainstreaming. Minorities and indigenous rights Programming linking human rights standards and vulnerable or excluded groups includes minorities and indigenous peoples. A recent review has concluded that more progress has been achieved with regards to indigenous rights, with much less work on other ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities (see Annex 7.3.6 and Box 3.8). The politically sensitive nature of minorities' rights in some regions contrasts with the more successful advocacy of indigenous peoples in many parts of the world. 18 Box 3.8: Minority and indigenous rights In a paper submitted in 2003 to the UN Working Group on Minorities, Minority Rights Group International reviewed donor agency support to minorities. It concluded that some good progress had been made by some agencies towards considering indigenous peoples in policy and programming. There had been much less work on other ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities. It recommended much larger capacity building and programming efforts by donors. It positively noted the following initiatives: • Inter-American Development Bank: Action Plan to address social exclusion based on racism or ethnic background. • Sida: good coverage of minorities in its Perspective on Poverty guidance. • SDC: training on the inclusion of minorities in development cooperation through a HRBA and backstopping mandate on minority rights. • UNDP: development of a policy note on minorities. In 2005 the World Bank issued an updated policy on indigenous peoples (OP/BP 4.10) and is planning orientation workshops and guidance to assist staff with implementation. The policy requires the design of Bank-financed projects to avoid adverse impacts and provide culturally appropriate benefits. Design requires screening, social assessment by the borrower, consultation with affected communities, preparation of a plan or planning framework, and disclosure. It aims to ensure that financing is only provided where free, prior and informed consultation results in broad community support, including broad support by the affected indigenous peoples for physical relocation in incidences where this is unavoidable. The Bank has also recently established a Global Fund for Indigenous Peoples which provides direct grants as well as support to the UN permanent forum for indigenous peoples. Health A significant number of health or HIV/AIDS policies make reference to human rights (e.g. discrimination of persons living with HIV/AIDS), although they do not always provide operational guidance to address those issues (e.g. how to reconcile public health and human rights objectives in practice). Tools and innovative programmes are being developed in order to illustrate how a HRBA to health can be implemented through development cooperation. For example, research and documented donor experiences illustrate how successful approaches to reproductive health and maternal mortality require that interventions examine the barriers faced by women to accessing services, in particular those related to gender discrimination, as well as sensitivity to cultural and religious factors (see Box 3.9). Box 3.9: Gender and health outcomes The Maternal Mortality MDG is off-track. By moving to a HRBA, UNICEF in Peru was better able to understand the gender, economic and geographic barriers to poor indigenous women using healthcare centres. Starting from their point of view, UNICEF identified how to work with a range of state and non-state actors to provide culturally appropriate health services and educate communities about safe-motherhood practices. Similarly, DFID has developed a ‘how to’ note to help staff programme in a different way. It argues that approaches based on public health and health systems can be complemented by a focus on, for example: adequate laws and policies that take women’s rights into account; addressing inequalities in accessing services and improving the quality of care so that services are tailored to women’s needs; and increasing women’s knowledge of their rights to healthcare, for example through social mobilisation or community-managed support systems (see Annex 7.4.2). The World Health Organisation does not have an official human rights policy. However, a human rights team has a mainstreaming responsibility. It is starting to develop tools and provide examples of good practice. It has, for example, produced a guide to health, human rights and PRSPs and is working with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, such 19 as in the area of indicators. However, without an explicit policy endorsement and the commitment of more resources, it is felt that progress will be limited. By contrast, UNFPA recently adopted a policy note on HRBA, complemented by an information note. With a mandate for reproductive rights and health, UNFPA is working within a particularly controversial area. However, while being clear that cultural claims cannot be used to justify the violation of human rights, UNFPA is committed to finding culturally sensitive ways to engage with human rights. Innovative work is underway within its country programmes in order to build partnerships with communities and faith-based organisations (see Annex 7.4.3). Education Donor policies also often refer to the right to education, and there is an increasing range of experiences with regards to adopting a HRBA to education. In addition to putting into practice human rights principles such as participation, non-discrimination and accountability, it is seen to entail working not just on the realisation of the right ‘to’ education, but also on rights ‘in’ and ‘through’ education, such as paying attention to the overall educational framework (curricula, governance structure, distribution of resources in the education system) as well as to the social outcomes of education (see Box 3.10). Box 3.10: Sida and UNICEF right to education initiatives Sida • Sida’s Education Division has worked on developing methods to mainstream human rights and has been reorganised into two working groups, one devoted to a democracy and human rights perspective. In addition to a first paper on ‘Education for All: A Human Rights and Basic Need’, it later issued a position paper on ‘Education, Democracy and Human Rights’, demonstrating the importance of rights ‘to, in and through’ education. • It commissioned surveys which showed that countries’ legislation often corresponded with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but that indirect costs (such as uniforms) constituted a barrier. The rights to participate and to healthcare in schools were not often met, and there was discrimination against those with HIV/AIDS and refugees. • A human rights analysis has informed many country dialogues, such as in Ethiopia in support of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education; in Mozambique on the issue of the legal right to free education; and in Cambodia to improve rural schools. • As with other bilaterals, a great deal of Sida support on the right to education is channelled through UNICEF. UNICEF • In Pakistan, UNICEF and SDC have collaborated in a project to enhance skills for girls. This has included home-schooling and leadership and negotiation skills. It has assisted girls in obtaining their rights without inducing a negative reaction from their family and community. • In Peru, a rights-based analysis was used to identify the Andean and Amazon regions as those where children’s rights were most at risk. The ‘Opening Doors to Education for Rural Girls’ Programme calls for identifying and overcoming all of the cultural, economic, health-related, and in-school factors that have resulted in girls’ exclusion from primary education. • In Burkina Faso, a range of strategies were used to improve access and quality of education (e.g. communication for behaviour change, multi-sectoral approach, expanded partnerships, capacity building), with a focus on complementary strategies, such as food aid and microcredit for families sending girls to school, and improvements in safety and privacy for girls. • In Chile, a rights analysis showed that poor urban and rural adolescents were deprived of their right to education through low-completion rates. Through mobilisation of duty- bearers (parents, teachers, faith-based groups), UNICEF assisted the preparation of a 20  new law under which the state assumed responsibility for providing 12 years of free education for all. Livelihoods Integrating human rights in livelihoods programmes has been more challenging for donors, possibly because the relevance of human rights standards requires more analysis. Some normative developments are very recent, for example with regards to the right to water (a general comment was only issued in 2003), or the right to food (the Food and Agriculture Organisation agreed voluntary guidelines to implement the right to food in 2004, after 20 months of negotiations). There are a number of good examples. UNIFEM has been able to achieve successes by adopting a HRBA to women’s land rights in Central Asia, based on ‘bridging analysis’ linking specific human rights commitments with policy-relevant recommendations. INGOs, often funded by donors in their larger programmes, have also been documenting their experiences, which in the main rely on the introduction of human rights principles, such as participation, in programming (see Box 3.11). DFID has undertaken considerable research comparing HRBAs and ‘sustainable livelihoods’. The conclusions are that HRBAs contribute to a greater focus on power relations and policy processes; encourage the use of participatory planning; and help establish local accountability mechanisms. Inclusion was more difficult to achieve. Box 3.11: Food and land rights interventions In Kyrgyzstan, UNIFEM has been involved in supporting a greater focus on women’s rights as part of the land reform process. Achievements have included submitting draft amendments to the existing Land Code and related policies to the relevant government agencies and Parliament; strengthening the capacity of local government officials and staff to better protect women’s rights to land; and increasing the understanding of the general public (see Annex 7.3.4). Humanitarian assistance in Sierra Leone was distributed in collaboration with Village Development Committees, which often resulted in misappropriation of inputs. With DFID support and on the basis of participatory research CARE has facilitated dialogue centred on the development of community mechanisms to ensure the accountability of their representatives on the Committees and greater inclusion in the distribution of food aid. Infrastructure Human rights can play a positive role in infrastructure programmes: for example, they can be developed through a HRBA. By demanding rigorous political and social analysis, such an approach to design and implementation is considered to have helped prevent interventions from inadvertently reinforcing existing conflicts and power imbalances, as found in WaterAid projects (see Annex 7.3.7). Large infrastructure programmes, such as the construction of dams, can also be a direct cause of human rights violations, for example by resulting in forced displacements without compensation. A number of agencies are trying to introduce ‘do no harm’ policies to prevent or mitigate negative impacts. For example, the World Bank has a policy on involuntary resettlement, recognising the economic, social and environmental risks associated with development projects in this area and the need for safeguards to address and mitigate them (see Box 3.12). The World Bank’s Inspection Panel was set up to ensure that the Bank complies with its own policies. This can have the indirect effect of preventing human rights violations, although it was not established for that purpose. 21 Box 3.12: World Bank Involuntary Resettlement Policy The World Bank aims to mitigate the risks that may result from involuntary resettlement. It recognises that such displacement may cause severe long-term hardship, impoverishment, and environmental damage unless appropriate measures are carefully planned and carried out. The Bank’s policy objectives are: • Involuntary resettlement should be avoided where feasible, or minimised, exploring all viable alternative project designs. • Where it is not feasible to avoid resettlement, activities should be conceived and executed as sustainable development programmes, providing sufficient investment resources to enable the persons displaced by the project to share in project benefits. Displaced persons should be meaningfully consulted and should have opportunities to participate in planning and implementing resettlement programmes. • Displaced persons should be assisted in their efforts to improve their livelihoods and standards of living or at least to restore them, in real terms, to pre-displacement levels or to levels prevailing prior to the beginning of project implementation, whichever is higher. 3.4 Human rights dialogue and conditionality Human rights projects and mainstreaming efforts offer a positive way of connecting human rights and development. Yet, as noted by Uvin (2004:56), ‘When people first consider the relation between development and human rights, [they] most spontaneously begin by thinking about conditionality. They argue that donors should threaten to cut off development assistance – and execute that threat – to recipients that consistently violate human rights’. This view can be found in the DAC Ad Hoc Woking Group 1997 Final Report, which states that: ‘Development cooperation stresses positive measures for the promotion of PD/GG. The withholding of assistance should be reserved for cases where persistent violations of men, women and children's basic rights are not being addressed by the government and no adequate basis of shared values and interests exists to permit a real partnership’. Most bilateral agencies have explicit political conditionality policies, which they have applied more or less consistently (on SDC and DFID see, Piron and Court, 2003; Piron and de Renzio, 2005). Since the early 1990s, the European Union has introduced human rights clauses in its agreements, and considers human rights, democracy and the rule of law as ‘essential elements’ of development cooperation, which can lead to the suspension of aid (see Box 3.13). A wide range of dialogue approaches has been used to respond to systematic violations or weak commitment to human rights: at a technical (project) level; in the context of agreeing overarching country strategies; or as part of foreign relations. Sometimes donors engage in both bilateral and multilateral dialogues with the same countries (e.g. bilateral dialogues with China and Iran as well as through the EU). The suspension of aid has usually been the exception and a measure of last resort. Anecdotal evidence suggests this is usually linked to democracy issues (e.g. coups, fraudulent elections) rather than other rights, in particular economic or social rights. The application and impact of political dialogue and conditionality have, however, not been well researched recently (older studies include Burnell, 1994; Stokke, 1995; Crawford, 1997). Weaknesses in traditional approaches have been identified (effectiveness, consistency in application, ethical dilemmas) and it is recognised that new aid policies and modalities require a shift in current practices (see Section 5). There is much to be learnt from existing donor experiences, but documenting and sharing them in public fora is considered politically sensitive. Sida is planning an evaluation of its dialogue experiences, and DFID is planning to make available an empirical study of the application of political conditionality to general budget support in Africa, which also recommends learning about good dialogue processes. 22 Box 3.13: Human rights conditionality: European and Finnish examples The EU has a range of policies and experiences which could inform the GOVNET: the Cotonou agreement with Africa, Caribbean and Pacific countries makes explicit references to human rights and creates a mechanism for structured dialogue and eventual aid suspension if issues are not resolved. The EU also undertakes dialogues focusing exclusively on human rights (e.g. with China since 1996 and Iran since 2002); dialogues within the framework of joint commission meetings as part of EC Trade and Cooperation Agreements (e.g. Bangladesh, Laos, Vietnam); as well as many other ad hoc and other exchanges. The EC Governance Guidelines suggest basic criteria that need to be respected for aid programming to take place. Minimum governance standards include respect for: non- derogable rights; equality and non-discrimination; and non-retrogression. Finland’s position on conditionality is consistent with that of most other bilaterals. It is committed to long-term cooperation but serious human rights problems may lead to a reduction or end of aid. It pays attention to a country’s commitment to improving human rights, democracy, equality and corruption in its overall assessment of its commitment to development. In 2001, Kenya, Zambia and Nicaragua failed to meet conditions relating to human rights, democracy and good governance but since then the situations have improved and cooperation is increasing. In 2004, Finland considered that instability and the poor human rights situation in Nepal meant there were no possibilities for increasing cooperation. New approaches to aid policy and modalities create the opportunity to revisit some of the common assumptions about the ‘negative’ integration of human rights through conditionality. The recent studies that do exist about dialogue and the application of sanctions point to a number of lessons relevant for what is being called a ‘post- conditionality’ approach in the PRSP context of ‘process’ conditionality and selectivity (Harrison, 2001; Santiso, 2003; Uvin, 2004; Piron and de Renzio, 2005). Section 5 offers a set of principles which the GOVNET could consider. 3.5 Findings and recommendations Donors have been integrating human rights through direct projects, in their country programmes and at a global level, for example through international organisations. Most traditional interventions have been in the form of civil and political rights projects, often supported through civil society funds and closely associated with democracy and the rule of law. Some governance programming areas, such as access to justice, have started to change as a result of the introduction of HRBAs, but in general it is difficult to assess wider trends, in particular in governance areas where political dimensions have only more recently been taken into account. The absence of an explicit application of a human rights perspective to the wider governance agenda within the agencies reviewed is possibly one of the clearest gaps in donor experiences reviewed here. In addition, more efforts would be needed to construe human rights beyond civil and political rights, for example by paying greater attention to how improved governance can contribute to the greater enjoyment of core economic, social and cultural rights. There have been significant efforts at human rights mainstreaming across a number of non-governance sectors. Possibly because they are perceived as politically less sensitive and because of UNICEF’s successes in implementing its HRBA, child rights has been a particular area of documented activities, as have health and education. Gender equality interventions also significantly overlap with women’s rights programming, though the relationship to human rights is not always built upon. On the basis of limited evidence, the review suggests that donors may have less systematically documented or linked human rights to other areas, such as minorities, 23 infrastructure or livelihoods. Further examination would be needed to confirm this finding. Though commonly applied by bilateral agencies and the EU, there has also been limited recent donor research on the use and impacts of political conditionality. This remains a central challenge for new approaches to aid effectiveness. These findings show that programming efforts have aimed at putting human rights policies into practice in a more strategic manner beyond responsive projects. This marks a positive development since the DAC 1997 Ad Hoc report, which recommended that ‘support for human rights should evolve towards strategic approaches enabling opportunities to be exploited more systematically within a framework of longer term objectives’. A contradiction seems to remain in a number of agencies between the rhetorical commitment to the indivisibility of all human rights, and the prominence given to civil and political rights programming. It would be useful for the GOVNET and DAC to note that human rights are not limited to civil and political rights and are not only a subset of the governance agenda. This would require updating some of the existing DAC frameworks, for example the 2001 Poverty Guidelines, which associated human rights with civil and political rights (DAC, 2001:38-39). This identification of human rights with civil and political rights has also affected governance programming, with limited evidence and advice on how a wider range of governance interventions could strengthen the realisation of economic and social rights. An updated DAC statement would firmly anchor the guidance for agencies in the consensus achieved over the multi-dimensional nature of poverty, linked to the cross-cutting nature of human rights. GOVNET could also reflect on what seems to be the absence of an explicit application of a human rights perspective to the wider governance agenda. This could be examined in some of the GOVNET ongoing priority themes, such as the relationship between human rights and political economy studies (drivers of change/power analysis); corruption; and capacity development. The first topic would seem to be a priority given the close relation to human rights analyses. Governance indicators are also within the remit of GOVNET and of relevance to the further development of human rights indicators. There are also opportunities to learn from, and collaborate with, other DAC subsidiary bodies, such as GENDERNET or POVNET, given the cross-cutting, as opposed to sectoral, nature of human rights though the Task Team needs to bear in mind the need not to seek partnerships across all of the DAC. Aid agencies need to invest more in knowledge management and undertake more in- depth reviews and evaluations in order to identify gaps and lessons, and quantify interventions and their impacts. Specific issues for joint research and analysis which the Task Team could prioritise as part of the action-oriented policy and the preparation of practical guidance include: • Systematic study across a few donors of a governance sub-area where there has been a demonstrated policy and programming shift (e.g. rule of law/access to justice was reviewed here, but democratisation, decentralisation, or accountability interventions might provide another topic). • Achievements of non-governance interventions which have an explicit objective of human rights mainstreaming or HRBA within an identical small set of sectors to allow comparison and lessons (e.g. health, education). 24 • Study on human rights dialogue and the impact of conditionality by bilateral agencies and the EC, including the collaboration between development cooperation agencies and Ministries of Foreign Affairs (e.g. building on the DFID and Sida studies). 25 4. Preliminary lessons The methodology used for this synthesis prevents the identification of sector-, project- or country-specific lessons or measurable impacts. However, a number of existing studies have put together key messages about the contributions of more strategic forms of human rights integration in development cooperation. These tend to cover lessons or anticipated results regarding the application of human rights- based approaches, though they are still relevant for other forms of positive support. This section summarises some of these lessons found in the literature, grouped under the headings of the ‘rationales’ set out in Section 2. They are put forward for further discussion and testing by the Human Rights and Development Task Team. 4.1 Intrinsic value Explicit normative and analytical framework Human rights offer a coherent normative framework which can guide development assistance. It puts the human person at the centre of the analysis, linked to state obligations and citizens’ entitlements. It is a universal framework into which states enter freely, with a jurisprudence to support decision making. Its grounding in a consensual global legal regime creates a normative legitimacy and consistency which is not always found in development interventions – for example in the sometimes subjective prioritisation by funding agencies. In addition to the intrinsic value in using aid in a manner that promotes and respects human rights abroad, development agencies have pointed to the analytical value of human rights. There have been changes to project cycle management and new tools developed, which have enabled agencies to ask new questions and analyse situations differently. The bridging analysis undertaken by UNIFEM, for example, helps unpack the meanings and requirements of relevant human rights standards for particular contexts and contributes to development partners’ understanding of how human rights guidance can enhance existing work (see Box 4.1). Box 4.1: Women’s rights as an entry point to analyse land reform UNIFEM’s bridging analysis in Central Asia has enabled projects to use the international framework so as to identify priority areas. For example, such analysis has pointed to the need to examine the following aspects of a land reform process: women’s right to land; women’s rights in relation to family; women’s access to credit; and the impact of stereotypes, discriminatory customs and religious laws on women’s access to land and property. Adaptability to different political and cultural environments Aid agencies and their partners are sometimes concerned that programming in this area is simply too difficult, for example because of conflicts between human rights and local religion or culture, or certain political contexts. Some agencies have been able to use human rights as tools to engage with, and influence, harmful and discriminatory practices which might otherwise remain unchallenged. For example, with regards to health and reproductive rights, UNFPA has been able to identify culturally sensitive ways of engaging with human rights, drawing on Islamic sources in Muslim countries, or distinguishing between culture at large and ‘harmful practices’ which violate women’s rights (see Annex 7.4.3). UNICEF has also adopted different approaches in different country situations, for example a focus on policy, legal and institutional reforms in Latin America; community-level work in parts of Africa; and a 26 progressive approach to human rights engagement in Vietnam, showing the importance of the ‘time-factor’ (see Annexes 7.1.2 and 7.2.2 and Box 4.2). Box 4.2: UNICEF’s work in Vietnam This country programme demonstrates the results of long-term engagement using a non- confrontational language and high-level political dialogue in centralised socialist political systems. Child rights principles were first introduced in UNICEF analysis and planning without the use of explicit rights language which would have been too sensitive. By broadening the range of its state and party counterparts, UNICEF was able to raise awareness of children’s rights in a number of areas. Successes have included progress with legal reform, juvenile justice and child protection. As the case study notes ‘patience, persistence and appropriate strategies for the use of language were instrumental in the process’. Use of operational human rights principles Programming around operational human rights principles has been a fruitful approach in many agencies, such as Sida, DFID and many other bilaterals. Slightly different sets of operational human rights principles have been developed and used but in general they are a combination of the principles found in the UN Common Understanding (see Box 2.1). At the sectoral level, other principles derived from the UN treaty monitoring bodies' general comments with regards to economic and social rights (e.g. accessibility, adaptability, acceptability, affordability of services) also offer promising operationalisation strategies. For agencies which have not adopted explicit human rights policies, operational principles also offer a strategy for working on human rights in what might be called an ‘implicit’ manner. This is the case with the World Bank’s Social Development Strategy (see Box 4.3). Box 4.3: World Bank Social Development Strategy In 2005, the World Bank adopted a new Social Development Strategy Empowering People by Transforming Institutions. While it is not grounded in the international human rights framework, it is based on commitments found in the UN 1995 Copenhagen Social Development Summit and the 2000 Millennium Declaration, and explicitly notes the similarities to related frameworks, such as Amartya Sen’s work on capabilities or Japan’s endorsement of ‘human security’ as an overarching framework. The strategy presents three operational principles closely related to other agencies’ human rights principles, in particular non-discrimination, inclusion and accountability. • Inclusive institutions to promote equal access to opportunities, enabling everyone to contribute to social and economic progress and share in its rewards. • Cohesive societies to enable women and men to work together to address common needs, overcome constraints and consider diverse interests. • Accountable institutions which are transparent and respond to the public interest in an effective, efficient and fair way. Operationally, the Bank is committing itself to changes which are also consistent with the implications of HRBA, such as: working at a more macro level; better incorporating social development in poverty reduction strategies through policy dialogue and policy lending; improving the development effectiveness of projects through a more comprehensive and efficient mainstreaming of social development, such as more participation in monitoring and evaluation; and better grounding with improved research, capacity building in partnerships, such as research on rights-based approaches and affirmative action policies in India or research in the Legal Vice Presidency on the linkages between the Bank’s mandate, policies, activities and human rights. 27 Relevance of the international human rights framework It is, however, important not to blur excessively the boundaries between operational principles which might be related to human rights, and interventions grounded in the human rights framework. There is a danger that ‘rhetorical repackaging’ (Uvin, 2004) might occur, with every single intervention aimed at enhancing accountability, by using a participatory approach or channelling aid through CSOs described as ‘rights- based’, or arguing that a donor is contributing to social and economic rights simply because of investments in schools or job creation. Such interventions would need to be related to specific state obligations in order to be categorised as contributing to the realisation of human rights. The UN Common Understanding offers a useful framework for distinguishing between elements of HRBAs which are ‘unique’ and those which are ‘essential’ but shared with other perspectives and more commonly found in development (see Annex 5). ‘Unique’ elements are those clearly linked to the human rights framework: • Unique elements: This would include assessing the capacity of rights-holders to claim their rights, and of duty-bearers to fulfill their obligations, and then develop strategies to build these capacities. Programming is informed by the recommendations of international human rights bodies and mechanisms. • Essential elements: For example as recognising people as key actors in their own development, rather than as passive recipients of commodities and services, and valuing participation, empowerment, and bottom-up processes. 4.2 Governance State-citizens linkages Donor interventions have a tendency to work either on the ‘supply-side’, for example in reforming state institutions so that they become more effective, or separately on the ‘demand-side’, such as civil society advocacy campaigns, in order to promote responsive governance. The use of HRBAs is seen as helping to break this artificial distinction by focusing on the links between demand and supply through the conceptual lens of ‘rights-holders’, ‘duty-bearers’ and citizenship (see Box 4.4). Box 4.4: Combining citizens’ awareness with the state’s ability to deliver Claiming citizenship rights requires that citizens be registered in the first place, so that they can legitimately demand their entitlements. In Bolivia, DFID and other donors are funding a project which assists in: providing identification documents to undocumented Bolivians (in particular the poor, women and indigenous people); raising awareness about citizen’s rights amongst civil society, civil registration officials and members of the electoral court; as well as working with the ‘supply’ side, in this case increasing the capacity of the court and registration service to undertake the referendum and municipal elections during 2004-2005. In Peru DFID has also supported both the mechanisms of citizen participation and the formal institutions of representative democracy. It worked with a coalition of state and CSOs to facilitate electoral education and oversight during presidential, congressional, regional and municipal elections. The aim was to strengthen citizenship by fostering the active involvement of poor people in the electoral process. At the same time, DFID assisted in transforming the institutional/legal framework in which the political parties operated, by bringing together state and civil society actors to discuss and achieve consensus on a new Law of Political Parties and a reform of the electoral code. It also worked directly with parties (see Annex 7.2.3). 28 Accountability, redress and legitimacy Strengthening state legitimacy is fundamental to the governance agenda and respect for human rights standards in itself offers a source of legitimacy. Institutional channels for domestic accountability are becoming an important development concern in the context of improved aid effectiveness (e.g. in relation to general budget support and financial management), but also as a spur to pro-poor domestic reform (e.g. encouragement of parliamentary involvement in PRS). Human rights provide an accountability framework at the international, regional and national (constitutional) levels, which emphasises the need to document and monitor practices and progress regularly, and provides recommendations, compensation or redress. This channel of accountability can be used to hold not just states but also aid agencies accountable for their performance (see Section 5). The approach highlights the importance of a range of accountability structures and remedies to be made available. Various initiatives reviewed for this study aim to build accountability processes and institutions, for example around the rule of law (see Annex 7.3.3) but also around democracy and political participation (see Annex 7.2.3). Meaningful participation The policies and programmes reviewed for this study demonstrate that HRBAs are often associated with the adoption of participatory techniques. DFID has, for example, been investing in ‘Participatory Rights Assessment Methodologies’, which have been piloted in Peru and Malawi. UNICEF has used a participatory community development strategy in parts of Africa. In addition to approaches that aim to contribute to the empowerment of poor and vulnerable populations, the integration of human rights requires paying attention to the need for free, informed, and meaningful participation which can be institutionalised and impact on public policy choices (see Box 4.5 on child participation and labour). More traditional human rights projects, such as around civic education or election processes, have contributed to this process (see Box 4.4). Box 4.5: Child participation and CIDA Child rights programming by donors and NGOs such as Save the Children has emphasised child participation. In some cases, this has led to outcomes that were not anticipated. For example, CIDA has been funding child participation pilot projects as part of the implementation of its 2001 Action Plan on Child Protection. The pilots have included child participation in decisions that affect them throughout the project cycle. CIDA has also supported the participation of children in research, international conferences, and policy dialogue. In its Egypt pilot, it was observed that child labour often benefited children and their families. Save the Children has also come across this finding as a result of child participation. Rather than directly addressing abolition, the project supports working children, to improve their learning and working conditions: they are empowered to identify labour hazards and to design appropriate responses. At the national level, the Egyptian government has asked the CIDA project to advise on a methodology for a participatory, rights-oriented national strategy for children (also see Annex 7.3.5). 4.3 Poverty reduction Examination of the root causes of poverty The lessons put forward under a ‘governance’ heading also contribute to those related to poverty reduction, in particular around participation and empowerment and the transformation of state-society relations. Many studies highlight the analytical value of human rights for identifying the structural and root causes of poverty. 29 Replacing a ‘needs-based’ framework, programming from a human rights perspective looks at states’ ability to meet their obligations, capacity and political will constraints, and citizens’ ability to claim and realise their rights and the cultural and social barriers that may exist. Illustrations reviewed for this study include the realisation by DFID in Latin America that inequality and exclusion represented a major barrier for poverty reduction and required tackling in new ways (see Annex 7.2.3). Better understanding of the context and power relations Examining the root causes of poverty requires understanding structural factors that perpetuate poverty, such as the roles of elites, abuse of state power or gender discrimination. Agencies are not always comfortable examining such issues explicitly, or do not have the social or political skills to do so; a human rights analysis can enable such an approach (see Box 4.6). A number of studies also point to the limitations of approaches that aim to respond only through legal or institutional change: social norms and values or informal power networks are amongst some of the most difficult challenges faced in the realisation of human rights (and pro-poor development outcomes more generally), as illustrated by the difficulties in achieving gender equality objectives. Box 4.6: Water rights in Tanzania In the Kileto District, Tanzania, WaterAid has been implementing a project to improve water access for residents. By integrating human rights principles into the programming process – in particular participation, non-discrimination, equality and empowerment – and including these as explicit programme goals, WaterAid was able to identify the underlying obstacles to equitable access to water. The participatory approach and analysis revealed that power imbalances, lack of land rights and exclusion from national policy decisions had resulted in two of the three main ethnic groups being excluded from access to water. The project was therefore able to work with the communities to overcome the inter-group conflict. Focus on excluded and marginalised individuals and groups Agencies have also found human rights programming more effective in the attention it puts on directly tackling disparities. The human rights principles of universality, equality and non-discrimination require that aid programmes pay attention to individuals and groups that may be harder to reach through normal channels and to the institutional, political, economic and social factors that may lead to exclusion and discrimination. This calls for the greater use of disaggregated data (see Box 4.7). Box 4.7: UNICEF use of new data UNICEF’s review of the implementation of a HRBA provides numerous examples of efforts to reduce disparities and reach the most excluded such as: • Use of disaggregated data to analyse the situation of women and children to reduce discrimination (Bangladesh). • Use of school drop-out rates, rather than enrolment, to shift policies and budgets towards adolescent excluded from the education system (Chile). • Targeting the polio eradication campaign on poor Muslim children under the age of two to reach the last 5-15%. This required specially adapted inclusive strategies, including a new communication strategy to reach the most marginalised families (India). 4.4 Aid effectiveness From direct service delivery to capacity building Human rights highlight the importance of states’ and citizens’ respective capacity to deliver and claim their rights. All too often, aid agencies and INGOs have attempted 30 to fill in capacity gaps, and deliver services directly, or advocate for policy change in the place of domestic actors. The various case studies of HRBAs, in particular those commissioned by UNICEF, consistently find that such an approach helps donors and NGOs understand the need to move away from direct delivery and work at the level of the overall legal and policy framework, institutions, and programmes. As a result, the approach is also generally considered more sustainable, as it requires capacity to be built beyond donor or NGO interventions (see Annex 7.1.2 on UNICEF). Holistic or integrated approaches Linking the principles of interdependence and interrelatedness of all human rights with development programming, a number of studies found that a HRBA, or working to take into account the full spectrum of human rights, had operational implications. It encourages more integrated programming, as opposed to a ‘silo’ approach, by examining the range of factors that constrain the realisation of particular rights. This includes, for example, linking the lack of security at school with girls’ school attendance, rather than the availability or quality of education per se. As a result, collaboration with other agencies within a sector, between different sectors, or across state and civil society actors is often seen as required (see Box 4.8). 36% of Country Offices which responded to a UNICEF survey of the impact of HRBA programming said that they had engaged in multi-sectoral programming as a result. Box 4.8: The ‘justice-chain’ UNDP’s Access to Justice Policy focuses on the various stages and capacities needed for citizens to move from grievance to remedy, going through: recognition of a grievance, awareness of rights, claiming, adjudication and enforcement. This allows the justice system to be analysed from the perspective not just of institutions, but also of citizens and the barriers that they need to overcome. As a result, responses may require collaboration across justice institutions; in the Asia-Pacific region, this included working with traditional justice. Explicitly recognising the political dimensions of aid An innovative element of a human rights-based approach to poverty reduction is the explicit recognition that, because it involves the attempt to change power relations within society, it is inherently political. Recognising that donors themselves can be political actors raises difficult issues regarding the legitimacy of donor action, the practice of power and lines of accountability. DFID realised these consequences in Peru, which also meant that there was the potential for conflict between DFID and the state (see Box 4.9). While few aid agencies would be able to act in an explicitly political (even if not party-political) manner, a number of studies, including on drivers of change/power analysis, recognise the political dimensions of poverty reduction, and the political role of donors pushing for pro-poor change. Box 4.9: Political party reform in Peru In order to start tackling exclusion and inequality, DFID Peru supported reform of the legal and institutional framework but also started working with political parties themselves to help them think more about poverty and how to tackle it. This is clearly a sensitive area for a donor. The Agora project involved a series of meetings that brought together militants from a wide range of parties to discuss issues of joint concern about how to strengthen party governance. In doing so, it sought to emphasise inclusiveness by facilitating the participation of all parties in the discussion and encouraging the involvement of local party activists by, for example, holding meetings outside Lima. 31 Building new partnerships ‘One of the major – and by now totally evident – consequences of a rights-based approach to development is that it encourages development actors to identify new partners’ (Uvin, 2004:163). Some of the case studies reviewed for this study have indeed confirmed this trend, encouraging donor agencies to work with wider sets of actors (see Box 4.10), often in a facilitative way to support domestic change processes. Box 4.10: New aid partnerships Sida’s mainstreaming project in Kenya is based on working with a network of local partners (government, NGOs and UN), given formal roles as resources persons for its sectoral programmes. It also informs a national process around the Kenya National Human Rights Commission. Ensuring accountability forced UNICEF to forge strategic alliances in Costa Rica with the Catholic Church, public universities, chambers of commerce, and political leaders, in order to come up with new social, economic and political proposals. In Jordan, in the context of limited material available in Arabic on CRC and CEDAW for legal experts, UNICEF established an agreement with the country’s law school resulting in making a course on human rights mandatory for all students as well as courses on CRC and CEDAW. In Peru, the DFID country team paid particular attention to cultivating new alliances for change, and nurturing existing networks. For example, it brought together human rights organisations working on civil and political rights with more traditional development and poverty reduction organisations. It supported coalitions between the state and civil society at election times. It also supported networks of health professionals and umbrella bodies to engage with government on health policy. Reinforcing ‘good programming practices’ To some extent, some of the contributions of human rights presented above can be described without using a ‘rights language’ (e.g. using drivers of change/power analysis rather than human rights analysis). This is the reason behind the UN Common Understanding’s distinction between ‘unique’ and ‘essential’ elements of a HRBA (see Annex 5), which differentiates between what is found across good programming in general and the specific value of the human rights normative framework. Why have some agencies preferred to maintain references to human rights? They argue that a foundation in a coherent, normative framework helps to make these good programming approaches non-negotiable, consistent and legitimate. They create the potential to transform some of the more traditional, technical and ’beneficiary-oriented’ or ‘needs-based’ approaches to aid. 4.5 Findings and recommendations This section has brought together a number of findings or lessons, widely found in the literature, on the strategic use of human rights in development cooperation. These are presented to the Task Team for further discussion and testing as part of the planned action-oriented policy process, as they form the core of the current evidence around the ‘value added’ of human rights for development. An important finding is that development agencies have varying degrees to which they ground the integration of human rights in the international human rights framework. Some, such as Sida or the UN, are explicit about the foundation of this 32 work in international human rights agreements and obligations, whereas others adopt a much more implicit use at the operational level in particular. Ultimately, the integration of human rights into development has to be related to the international framework that is the main source of legitimacy of the approach. This framework continues to evolve, and it would be important for development agencies, partner countries and civil society groups to continue to interact with human rights actors. At the same time, human rights organisations should continue to become more familiar with development concepts and approaches. The 2005 World Summit recently reaffirmed member states’ ‘solemn commitment’ to ‘fulfil their obligations to promote universal respect for and the observance and protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all in accordance with the Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other instruments relating to human rights and international law’ (para 120) and resolved to strengthen the UN human rights machinery, the OHCHR and the treaty monitoring bodies, further mainstreaming within the UN (paras 123-6) and establishing a Human Rights Council (paras 157-160). GOVNET members should continue to support initiatives aimed at strengthening the human rights system and mainstreaming human rights within the UN. The GOVNET could note the relevance of such interventions for the effective integration of human rights into development. Efforts would need to include ensuring that human rights standards and the general comments of the treaty monitoring bodies are well known and used, as well as enhancing the usefulness and relevance for development processes of the recommendations of these bodies (O’Neill, 2004; Alston, 2004). There is also a need for continued investment in development agencies’ own capacity to interact with human rights bodies and organisations, and for ‘translation’ between the development and human rights communities. The planned development of an action-oriented policy and guidance within the GOVNET should contribute to greater exchanges between these communities. 33 5. Challenges and opportunities The previous sections have illustrated the wide range of policy and programming interventions and contexts within which donor agencies are working on human rights issues, as well as what are usually considered the main benefits of a more strategic approach. This section examines the current challenges in and opportunities for the further integration of human rights in development cooperation. These can be categorised into three broad areas, those that are: internal to aid agencies; shared with national partners; and found across the aid system and aid policies. Each sub- section draws out the challenges faced by aid agencies under a number of themes, and provides illustrations of how they have been overcome. 5.1 Institutionalisation The main internal challenge faced by aid agencies is one of institutionalisation. For agencies also committed to applying a human rights-based approach internally, this requires a systematic look at the procedures and operations of the agency in order to identify required changes and strengthen staff capacities and incentive structures. For agencies committed to working on human rights in a more selective fashion, such as at the level of projects or in their dialogue, it has also been important to provide guidance to staff on why and how to undertake this work more effectively. A synthesis of documented experiences, in particular from HURIST, UNICEF, DFID and SDC, along with the interviews conducted for this study and the Sida visit, suggests that the following elements are important for effective institutionalisation: the external environment; senior leadership; staff capacity and incentives; the provision of new tools and guidance and changes to project cycle management; and adapting to working in a more decentralised context. International and political context Section 2 reviewed some of the legal and political constraints to integrating human rights. Opportunities created in the post-Cold War international environment included the Vienna (human rights), Beijing (women), Copenhagen (social development) and Durban (racism) conferences. These were reflected in the Millennium Declaration and again reaffirmed in the 2005 World Summit outcome document. Such international statements, and the action plans derived from them, can create strong incentives for agencies to review the extent to which they have put their human rights policies into practice. Domestic political contexts have also created different opportunities for aid agencies. For example, existing studies point to the domestic commitment to human rights in social-democratic Nordic countries. As is illustrated by Sweden’s new policy, ‘Shared Responsibility: Sweden’s Policy for Global Development’, domestic commitments can then be extended into international action, including aid. In the UK, the 1997 elections brought into power politicians committed to both an ethical foreign policy in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and to paying greater attention to economic and social rights within aid provision (DFID, 1997). Senior level commitment, accountability and communication Resistance to policy change is a consistent pattern across agencies. Existing reviews indicate that senior level managers and other ‘policy champions’ have played a particularly important role in agencies such as UNICEF, Sida and DFID. This has not 34 been limited to issuing new policies, but also involves taking steps to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to communicate and implement them. Making staff accountable to senior management has been a useful approach (see Box 5.1). Box 5.1: Senior directives In 1998, UNICEF issued an Executive Directive introducing its HRBA to programming (HRBAP). It assigned responsibilities for dissemination and implementation to heads of offices, regional directors and division directors. The HRBAP was not made a separate thematic area, but rather every staff member and Country Office was given responsibility for implementation. Both the Vietnam case study and the ongoing evaluation of UNICEF’s HRBAP strengthening project emphasise the important role played by senior staff in UNICEF’s transformation (see Annex 7.1.2). NZAID has translated ministers’ commitments to human rights mainstreaming into an implementation plan. An implementation team, including senior managers, meets monthly to review progress with an obligation to report to ministers after a few years. The implementation plan targets not only strategy, planning and programming, but also organisational capacity and cultural transformation within NZAID, such as: data capture on human rights programming; staff recruitment and training; a process for responding to staff concerns about human rights abuses (within the agency or in partner countries); reviewing contracting procedures; and the agency’s communication strategy (see Annex 7.4.5). Strengthening staff capacities and creating staff incentives Agencies generally started with little staff expertise when they first adopted and began to implement their human rights policies. To support policy developments and operationalisation, most have created new focal point positions, and some have recruited experts externally. Numbers remain small, with often only one or two persons responsible for human rights and related issues at headquarters, usually located within governance units. Additional strategies have included: • giving responsibility to a professional cadre with country programming responsibility (e.g. DFID social development advisers); • a range of training programmes and learning opportunities, brought to the regions and suited to different audiences and levels of expertise, to mainstream expertise across the agency (UNICEF, Sida, Dutch); • exchanges of information and experiences within agencies (e.g. DFID ‘social development retreats’ or Sida ‘democratic governance’ events); • networking, such as learning from other agencies. Box 5.2: Capacity building initiatives NZAID is a new agency. Its human rights policy was the second document issued by senior management. Most staff are newly recruited and have been inducted in the human rights policy. This contrasts with agencies where staff have been in post for longer; are already familiar with existing approaches and frameworks; and are not offered training. DFID significant policy and programming developments can be credited to its professional network of social development advisers (about 70 out of 2,500) tasked to ensure that a social perspective is applied to all DFID activities, including human rights considerations. Individual advisers have championed the approach in specific projects/programmes, as well as in the development of country strategies or new policy initiatives. By contrast with most other bilateral agencies, governance advisers have often done so explicitly. Interviews provided many examples of agencies learning from one another: Sida found DFID’s 2000 Human Rights Target Strategy Paper an inspirational document which helped push forward their own thinking. SDC has made use of developments within the UN system, such as the draft OHCHR PRS and human rights guidelines or the UN Common Understanding, in order to promote internal debate. 35 Provision of new tools and procedures The detailed review of the impact of SDC’s human rights and rule of law documents illustrates how new policies need to be accompanied by practical advice to facilitate implementation (Piron and Court, 2003). UNICEF and Sida report that staff are now familiar with a HRBA at a conceptual level, but want concrete tools and examples of added value. Agencies have issued a great deal of guidance documents. Some mainstreaming tools are sector specific (e.g. health, education) or thematic (e.g. children). Others assist in country analysis and objective setting (e.g. Sida’s ‘guide for country analysis from a democratic governance and human rights perspective’). Changes to project cycle management (PCM) procedures have been introduced in several agencies to facilitate the systematic integration of human rights at all levels of design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, with regards to both regional/country strategies and programmes/projects. In some cases, these have been compulsory; within the UN system, UNICEF and CCA/UNDAF reviews show the impact this mandatory approach is having on country strategies and activities (see Box 5.3). Box 5.3: HRBA to UN country assessment and programming The UN system has integrated a HRBA into the guidelines to prepare Common Country Assessments and UN Development Assistance Frameworks. A recent review for OHCHR by O’Neill (2004) showed that there was increasing evidence of commitment to HRBA with a willingness to put it into practice. Most CCA/UNDAFs now: explicitly state that human rights forms the basis of their analysis and programmes; contain a more sophisticated analysis of the root causes of poverty; have a more sophisticated approach to advocacy; document data inadequacies in identifying discrimination and inequities; and are more thorough and provide greater clarity in relation to capacity analyses of both duty-bearers and rights-holders. He also concluded that more could be done to systematically use the findings of the UN human rights system and translate them into programming priorities (see Annex 7.4.1). Agencies seem to have made the most changes at the level of strategy and programme appraisal and design. New approaches have included: • Human rights situation analysis to inform the development of country strategies by identifying national human rights constraints, weaknesses and opportunities to strengthen capacities of both state and non-state actors (e.g. DFID Peru identification of exclusion and inequality as a major constraint to poverty reduction; Sida guide; UNICEF guidelines. See Annex 7.1.) • Bridging analysis, which starts from a country’s existing international, regional and constitutional human rights obligations and identifies gaps in legislative frameworks, policies and programmes; also, measures recommended by the human rights system to fill these gaps in order to identify programming priorities (e.g. UNIFEM Tadjikistan, see Annex 7.3.4). • Participatory approaches used at all stages (e.g. DFID ‘participatory rights assessments methodologies’ or the joint UNDP-OHCHR rights-based municipal assessment and planning project in Bosnia-Herzegovina). One of the basic human rights principles as applied to PCM is the ‘do no harm policy’. For example, Sida’s summary of its updated policy framework includes the minimum requirement that a programme should not negatively impact on human rights (Sida 2005a). However, there seem to be few approaches to monitoring this, in particular at the level of the implementation of donor-funded activities. Examples could be through codes of conduct for agency staff and project implementers or complaint or redress mechanisms accessible to beneficiaries so that they can hold agencies to account. Exceptions, in the humanitarian field, include the Sphere 36 Project and Humanitarian Ombudsman. The revised code of conduct for international civil servants references human rights as a fundamental value; many donors have human resources policies which aim to improve staff diversity and gender equality. These do not, however, deal with the direct accountability of staff to the public or the impact of donor activities on beneficiaries. The March 2005 HURIST lesson-learning workshop recommended paying attention to setting up mechanisms at the national level to keep pressure on UNDP to implement its HRBA following the carrying out of rights-based country reviews, as was piloted in HURIST in Kenya with indigenous peoples. Donor agencies would be in a position to support national constituencies (e.g. in civil society and including partner governments) to hold them to account for implementing their human rights policies, creating a momentum to improve collective performance. Human rights monitoring and evaluation seems to be a weakness across most agencies and at all stages in the programming cycle. This applies to human rights projects, mainstreaming efforts, and dialogue initiatives, as well as to country programme impacts and the overall institutionalisation of human rights policies within agencies. For example, at the level of projects/country programmes, NORAD has developed a Human Rights Impact Assessment Tool but this does not appear to have been systematically used. Human rights indicators are being developed to assess overall country performance and influence aid allocations (see Section 5.3) but these remain controversial. The Metagora project, based in OECD DAC – Paris 21 is developing promising national-level methodologies, combining statistical data and traditional qualitative human rights approaches, which could improve human rights impact monitoring at a country (as opposed to project) level. The area of human rights indicators, monitoring and evaluation requires more in-depth review than was possible in this study. Adapting to a decentralised context The increasing decentralisation of most aid agencies, which permits closer interaction with national partners and country-based aid coordination, poses a challenge to the institutionalisation of human rights and other policies. These have tended to be developed at headquarters and need to be applied in specific country contexts. As illustrated in the SDC and DFID reviews, decentralisation has enabled some Country Offices to experiment with a HRBA even when central policies and procedural changes lagged behind. Strategies have included: • ensuring field representation in the development of human rights policies and guidance (e.g. SDC consultation process); • decentralising expertise to Country Offices (e.g. Sida’s regional democracy and human rights advisors; DFID’s social development advisers) or including human rights in the TORs for a wider range of field positions (e.g. UNIFEM); • providing HQ advice to targeted country programmes (e.g. HURIST reviews of UNDP country programmes); • establishing regionally based, multi-agency ‘communities of practice’ to share lessons about human rights in a region/country relevant way (e.g. OHCHR Lessons-Learned Project on HRBA in the Asia-Pacific region or UNDP’s lesson learning work on Rights and Justice in the same region); • including questions about progress on human rights programming in annual planning instructions and Country Office reports (e.g. UNICEF annual reviews); • facilitating and documenting country-level piloting of new approaches to feed into institutional learning (e.g. DFID PRAMs initiatives in Peru and Malawi); 37  • experimenting and documenting the application of a HRBA across a full country programme (e.g. UNICEF case studies; Sida Kenya programme; DFID Peru, Bolivia and Brazil programmes). Box 5.4: HURIST Human Rights Country Reviews HURIST has facilitated 14 human rights based UNDP country programme reviews. The aim is not to rate individual country programmes, but to help identify areas for strengthening and share best practices. A check-list has been developed and the methodology has been applied well beyond the envisaged 5 pilots. This initiative has helped involve country offices in UNDP’s mainstreaming process and gained institutional support from regional bureaux. In some cases, a HURIST review mission was the first event where human rights were firmly put on the agenda of a UNDP country office. The last reviews capitalised on the staff capacity building opportunities the process created. Programming benefits have included, for example, encouraging country offices to pay greater attention to participation and vulnerable groups. 5.2 National development partners Integrating human rights into development assistance is not simply a technical matter which can be resolved by adequate training or better adapted tools and procedures. In some contexts, aid agencies have found engagement with partner governments around human rights issues particularly difficult because they make explicit the political dimensions of poverty reduction, or because of weak capacity. There are two overarching challenges facing the GOVNET at this level: the need to clearly understand and explicitly address the links between fragile states and human rights; and reconciling human rights with the national ownership and leadership of strategies on which aid is increasingly based. Box 5.5: Contextual constraints faced by UNICEF staff The most recent UNICEF progress review identifies a number of contextual challenges faced by staff implementing a HRBA. Constraints include the operations of government structures in partner countries, in particular when they operate in a highly centralised manner, with limited public accountability. Some country contexts present greater challenges, such as war-torn societies, widespread poverty or extremely weak capacity, where basic survival or institution building is seen as a priority. There can also be open political resistance to human rights, for example in the context of sharp ethnic divisions where collecting disaggregated data or providing education in native languages is not politically acceptable. Resistance to human rights goes beyond governments and can include social norms and values, such as opposition to child and adolescent participation and a preference for seeing aid as charity. Human rights and fragile states The TORs for this study are limited to development cooperation and do not cover violent conflicts or humanitarian assistance. However, donors have become more aware that they need to find better ways of engaging in ‘difficult environments’ or ‘fragile states’, defined by the DAC as ‘countries where there is a lack of political commitment and/or weak capacity to develop and implement pro-poor policies, suffering from violent conflict and/or weak governance’ (DAC, 2005:2). Interviews and the document review have suggested that the theoretical and practical links between human rights and fragile states are presently underdeveloped. For example, the DAC principles for good international agreement in fragile states, which are being piloted in 10 countries, make no references to human rights. Few agencies have developed policy statements or strategies in these areas; when they have, human rights are not given much prominence. There is, however, an implicit human 38 rights justification behind this agenda: the systematic denial of the full range of human rights in such situations requires a broader aid response. Overcoming weak capacity to implement human rights Weak capacity to realise human rights can result from a range of factors, such as limited resources to meet ‘minimum standards’ or ignorance of human rights duties and claims. The positive approaches examined in Section 3, and the key role given to ‘capacity building’ of rights-holders and duty-bearers in the UN common understanding on HRBA are the strategies most commonly adopted to overcome this. In weak or fragile states, the role of human rights may sometimes need to be different, helping to identify what is required for effective nation/state building. The challenge is that there may be no or such limited state capacity that some human rights obligations may not be realistic: for example, holding to account states for meeting even the most basic obligations, such as maintaining security or providing access to services. A human rights perspective would highlight how to move progressively to a situation where states can meet their basic obligations, creating the basis of a stronger social contract between rulers and ruled. This approach is fully consistent with the current focus of the DAC fragile state approach which prioritises: state core functions (basic security, justice, economic and service delivery functions); legitimacy and accountability; and the creation of an enabling environment (DAC, 2005). Overcoming political resistance to human rights The most common challenge faced by aid agencies has been the reluctance to engage in human rights programming or dialogue because of the fear of rejection of the human rights agenda by official partners, for example on the grounds of political interference in domestic sovereignty or cultural relativism. The recent UN World Summit outcome document is useful here: it reaffirms the universality of human rights and commits member states to ‘to integrate the promotion and protection of human rights into national policies’ (UN, 2005b: para 126). Strategies to overcome political resistance reviewed in this study have included progressive engagement (UNICEF in Vietnam), bypassing state actors (European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights), the use of dialogue, and the possibility of applying conditionalities, such as sanction and aid suspension. Case studies of DFID and Sida in Peru and Kenya suggest that opportunities for engagement are greater in certain regimes and at certain political times, although resistance will also be found at other levels in government and society, such as in terms of unequal gender relations. When state fragility is more clearly linked to a lack of will than capacity, human rights continue to have a role to play in donor engagement, and have in fact been used. They can provide a tool of analysis to understand power relations and state capacity issues behind this lack of will. They offer an entry point for dialogue based on an international, rather than bilateral, approach. Special human rights procedures can be used as part of fact-finding and guiding an international response (e.g. human rights missions ignored prior to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda). When the political environment permits, HRBA to aid can support social change processes to demand more effective and accountable states, or focus on the core rights required for change (e.g. freedom of expression/association or move to more equitable services). 39 National ownership of the human rights agenda Finally, a common resistance to human rights on the part of national partners has been the challenge that human rights are an externally imposed agenda. This would seem to conflict with the principle of national ownership, whereby partner countries exercise effective leadership over their development policies and strategies and coordinate development actions. Responses in the main have been twofold. First, the starting point has been to refer to nationally entrenched fundamental rights in constitutions and domestic legal standards, as well as the freely entered into international human rights obligations. These are the existing commitments of partner states that aid can help better meet. Secondly, donors have paid attention to supporting national actors’ participation in Poverty Reduction Strategy processes, allowing wider constituencies to engage and supporting domestic accountability. In Uganda, for example, DFID has funded participatory processes, including a focus on pastoralist communities; UNDP has supported the Uganda Human Rights Commission in policy debates; and a CSO coalition has advocated for a rights-based approach to the Poverty Eradication Action Plan revisions, leading to greater emphasis on equity considerations. More lessons about the integration of human rights in PRSs may result from ongoing research on poverty and human rights by the Geneva-based International Council on Human Rights Policy. Lessons may also be able to be learnt from current OHCHR efforts, such as the application of the guidelines on human rights and PRSs and the piloting of the approach by HURIST in a limited set of countries. 5.3 Aid policies and modalities Finally, aid agencies working on human rights issues face the challenge of integrating human rights into their joint aid policies. Issues reviewed here include: the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), aid allocations and modalities, policy coherence and other elements of the Paris Declaration agenda.1 Given the prominent role played by the DAC in advancing these debates, it would make sense for the GOVNET Task Team members to advance this particular agenda in this context. Millennium Development Goals Poverty reduction and the MDGs are now at the centre of most agencies’ policies and strategies; progress on achieving the MDGs is being used to plan and monitor agencies' overall performance. The 2000 Millennium Declaration makes an explicit reference to human rights, but the MDGs themselves are not identical to the existing human rights framework. For a number of agencies, the MDGs and human rights are fully compatible frameworks given that the MDGs are derived from the UN conferences of the 1990s, which included human rights and social development objectives. Some commentators consider this approach too narrow: the MDGs are seen to fall short of the human rights agenda: they identify a more limited set of obligations; ignore civil and political rights; and can be achieved at the expense of making equal progress on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded groups. Alston’s (2004) examination of a human rights perspective on the MDGs provides a detailed review of the debates and a number of practical recommendations to 1 The March 2005 DAC High Level Forum Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness sets a number of partnership commitments and progress indicators covering: ownership, alignment, harmonisation, results orientation and mutual accountability. 40 enhance synergies and commonalities. Our research has indicated broadly three ways in which agencies have responded to these challenges to-date by: • linking the MDGs to specific human rights and indicators (see Box 5.7); • highlighting the Millennium Declaration in their policy statements and not just the MDGs, so as to keep the full range of human rights standards and principles to the fore in the rationale for policies and programmes (for example, SDC has highlighted its contribution to human rights in Switzerland’s national report for the Millennium Summit (Swiss Federal Council, 2005); • illustrating how a HRBA to meeting the MDGs can be adopted (for example, DFID has developed a tool to promote a HRBA to maternal mortality. Its social exclusion policy is also phrased in terms of ensuring that an approach based on the MDGs does not miss out on excluded individuals and groups.) Box: 5.6: Linking MDGs and human rights indicators As a cross-cutting concern for the achievement of all the MDGs, gender equality is not well reflected in the global targets and indicators. CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action set further-reaching obligations. In cooperation with BMZ and GTZ, UNIFEM has developed a tool to show how the MDGs can be used as a vehicle for Beijing and CEDAW implementation at the national level. In ‘Pathway to Gender Equality’, each goal is accompanied by an analysis of the gender issues it raises and an identification of CEDAW and Beijing commitments to inform national MDG reporting and implementation strategies. The UN Rapporteur on the Right to Health is working to develop right to health indicators covering structural factors, processes and outcomes, and linking human rights norms to duty- bearers and the principle of non-discrimination, which requires disaggregated data. This will provide a broader framework to monitor not only progress in meeting the health MDGs but also the right to health, including dimensions ignored in the MDGs, such as mental health. Alignment and harmonisation Alignment refers to donor commitments to base overall support on partner countries' national development strategies, institutions and procedures. It requires national capacity development, in particular in the areas of public financial management and procurement, as well as increased use of state systems on the part of donors. Harmonisation requires donor actions to utilise common arrangements, simplified procedures, a more effective division of labour, more collaborative behaviour and greater transparency. The literature on alignment and harmonisation makes little reference to human rights. The Paris Declaration, however, does encourage donors to harmonise their approaches to cross-cutting issues. Human rights, given their role in states' domestic legal and policy frameworks, play a part in setting national development priorities, which donors can assist in implementing. In addition, there is a strong congruence between, on the one hand, building partners’ capacity and ensuring that aid does not undermine national capacities and, on the other, the fundamental principle that states are the main duty-bearers and that aid can be used to assist them in meeting their human rights obligations. There is room for further work on the part of donor agencies on how to integrate human rights better in these debates. However, there are a number of examples, showing that the capacity building prioritised under this aid agenda can be undertaken from a HRBA (see Box 5.7). In addition, greater collaboration and transparency can be applied to human rights work, whether in projects or dialogue. 41 Box 5.7: Public expenditure and rights programming UNICEF and UNIFEM have supported a number of initiatives to develop capacity for budget preparation and monitoring from a rights perspective, for example through gender or children’s budgets, bringing together Ministries of Finance and social movements. DFID has been supporting the Uganda Debt Network in its monitoring of the Poverty Action Fund, through which a significant amount of donor resources is being channelled to local levels. In Peru, DFID-supported taxation reform has been linked to citizens’ rights and duties. Aid allocations and aid modalities Assessments of whether human rights are being met, and the kind of additional resources needed to allow partner governments to better respect, protect and fulfil human rights are already informing aid allocation decisions. This is a sensitive area, as it is closely related to the application of political conditionality and the withholding or suspension of aid in certain circumstances (see Section 3.3). Some agencies are using public sets of human rights and governance indicators in order to identify and rewards ‘good performance’ (see Box 5.8). Box 5.8: The US Millennium Challenge Account The US Millennium Challenge Corporation aims not to use US political or foreign policy objectives in order to select beneficiary countries. It first identifies a set of countries based on their per capita income. It then uses 16 indicators in three categories (ruling justly; economic freedom; and investing in people) to measure countries against each other. It explicitly uses governance indicators and draws on the six dimensions of the World Bank Institute’s database, which itself uses a range of human rights indicators. Countries then become eligible to submit proposals for Millennium Challenge Account funding. The Board can exercise discretion in the selection process, to consider data weaknesses or additional qualitative information or if a country performs substantially badly on any indicator. The Center for Global Development, a US think tank which monitors the Millennium Challenge Account, has raised many questions with regards to the use of discretion, suggesting that some countries were selected on political grounds rather than sound policies. Section 3 has illustrated how, traditionally, human rights have been addressed through stand-alone projects, or are now being mainstreamed in sector programmes. A number of agencies interviewed expressed a concern that, in the current shift to programme aid modalities, such as general budget support or sector-wide approaches, a focus on human rights is being lost. Some agencies are, for example, cutting down on non-programme aid interventions, such as support to civil society organisations or grassroots activities, as these are perceived as more difficult to design and manage. Yet, they are considered a central element of integrating human rights into development cooperation, by supporting the ability of rights-holders to become aware, claim and enforce their rights. Agencies are currently responding to this challenge. For example, the German KfW has commissioned a study and portfolio analysis of the relevance of HRBA for financial cooperation. Some agencies have already developed tools to ground their choice of aid modalities, based on country analysis including human rights and governance (see Box 5.9). Research is suggesting that ‘a mix of aid instruments’ is desirable in support of social exclusion initiatives (Curran and Booth, 2005). Programme aid needs to be seen in the context of appropriate policy dialogue, technical advice and capacity building support to enable governments to identify and implement their national priorities. Finally, and as recognised in statements on aid alignment and harmonisation, both donors and governments need to build more effective accountability mechanisms, which is also a channel for integrating human rights into aid initiatives. 42 Box 5.9: The Netherlands’ track record framework This is an assessment framework used to determine what level of alignment is feasible in a partner country and whether the aid modalities that a mission wants to deploy satisfy the criteria that correspond to this level of alignment. It is an obligatory context analysis in the annual plan, linked to the Netherlands multi-annual planning and reporting to Parliament. The track record contains the conclusions and ratings of the different underlying policy areas and expresses the view of the country mission as a whole (development cooperation, economy and trade, policy and financial management). Human rights are covered under Category C2, ‘Basic conditions for good governance’, and the World Bank Institute governance indicators are used. Depending on the final score, an aid modality is chosen, ranging between full alignment (in the form of general budget support) and no alignment (project support). Results-based management The Paris Declaration includes a commitment to manage and implement aid in a way that focuses on the desired results and uses information to improve decision making. The literature on results-based aid management rarely touches upon the role of human rights in conceptualising and achieving results. This may owe to a perception that human rights give attention to processes, qualitative measures and normative standards which are not fully consistent with a focus on measurable outcomes. For example, agencies such as UNICEF have found that the lack of disaggregated data has constrained their ability to target and monitor progress with regards to equality and non-discrimination. A number of agencies have, however, worked to integrate human rights within their results-based management frameworks (see Box 5.10). There have been attempts to use national and international reporting on human rights commitments as part of country performance assessment frameworks, as well as investments in obtaining disaggregated data or tracking qualitative impacts, and a focus on structures and processes as well as outcomes (e.g. Special Rapporteur on Right to Health). Box 5.10: UNIFEM’s HRBA to results-based management UNIFEM has recently issued a guide, supported by training modules, on how to measure results from a human rights perspective. Its Multi-Year Funding Framework sets four rights- based goals: reduce feminised poverty and exclusion; end violence against women; halt and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS amongst women and girls; and achieve gender equality in democratic governance in times of peace and in recovery from war. The guide includes recommendations on how to measure progress with building the capacity of duty-bearers and rights-holders; using CEDAW as the source of indicators; and adopting a participatory approach to planning and reporting (see Annex 7.4.4). Mutual accountability Mutual accountability refers to the individual and joint accountability of donors and partner governments to their citizens and parliaments for their development policies, strategies and performance. The Paris Declaration requires that this accountability be based on: partner governments using participatory processes to develop and monitor national strategies and involve their parliaments; donors providing transparent information on aid flows to promote public accountability; and both parties jointly assessing progress in meeting aid effectiveness commitments. These mutual accountability principles are fully compatible with the human rights principles of accountability and transparency, which require access to information as well as participation in decision making. Human rights norms and standards can explicitly be part of this mutual accountability framework. This requires not only that partner governments demonstrate the 43 progress they are making in implementing their human rights commitments but also that donors be held accountable for their contribution to the realisation of human rights in partner countries. The review of existing policies and practice suggests that, at present: • there are several examples of agencies being explicit about putting human rights as shared values underpinning their aid partnerships (e.g. Finland, Netherlands, Sida, DFID, UN system); • there are disagreements regarding the extent to which the international human rights framework requires donors to be legally accountable for their human rights impacts, but the ethical or political implications are clear; • DAC peer reviews or mutual accountability discussions do not appear to have included explicit references to human rights commitments of donors and partners. Box: 5.11 Human rights and mutual accountability: DFID’s experience DFID’s new policy on conditionality (DFID, 2005c) mentions both that human rights commitments form the basis of the aid partnership and also that significant human rights violations can be used as a justification to suspend aid. It is the latter aspect which is causing the most discussion, whereas the former would require a different approach to programming and dialogue. The Memorandum of Understanding with Rwanda is one example of a mutual accountability framework. Rwanda has signed four MoUs (with the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland). The UK MoU includes references to human rights as a shared commitment of the UK and Rwanda; a wider set of commitments on the part of the UK than other donor governments (to meet aid effectiveness principles); and explicit references to the government of Rwanda’s human rights commitments. The methodology for assessing whether the MoU commitments have been met (usually based on annual independent reports rather than self reviews by governments) and the feedback loop into actual aid agreements are, however, relatively weak. Policy coherence The integration of human rights within development assistance is consistent with the need for donors to improve the coherence of their aid with their other policies, an issue already firmly on the DAC agenda. Indeed, human rights have traditionally been part of foreign policy, and in a number of countries reviewed, Ministries of Foreign Affairs have the overall lead on human rights. Initiatives to use aid in pursuance of human rights objectives, and to ensure that aid does not contribute to human rights violations overseas, are one way of promoting policy coherence. The coherence challenge has been easier to overcome for agencies already working closely with the Ministries of Foreign Affairs or when they are integrated (see Box 5.12). Other agencies have been developing closer relationships and have started to work more strategically with Ministries of Defence, Trade or Interior. The Austrian Development Agency, for example, has recently organised a training workshop on the protection of children’s rights in emergency situations with the Austrian Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs. 44 Box 5.12: The Swedish and Dutch models for aid policy coherence In 2003/2004, Sweden adopted a global policy to contribute to equitable and sustainable development, requiring that the ‘perspectives of the poor’ and ‘a rights perspective’ be systematically adopted. Sida is currently working through the implications of this policy, which requires significantly greater coherence internally within Sida, and also across the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other ministries. Coherence is facilitated in the Netherlands by the fact that the aid programme is developed and implemented through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its embassies. This has made it easier to integrate human rights with development cooperation and other responsibilities of the embassies. A handout has been produced to guide dialogue. The Ministry can also require human rights to be a compulsory issue to be raised in dialogue when the embassy does not see it as a priority. 5.4 Findings and recommendations Donors face three main sets of challenges with regards to the further strategic integration of human rights: institutionalising the approach internally within agencies; working on human rights issues positively with partner governments, in particular in fragile states; and making sure that human rights remain part of the current agenda around aid effectiveness and new aid modalities. With regards to the institutionalisation of human rights policies, Task Team members could, either within the GOVNET context or more informally: • Regularly share existing tools, guidance documents and undertake joint training, rather than investing in them separately. • Establish a mechanism to enable agencies to learn more systematically from one another, by serving as a knowledge management (and possibly advisory) centre for interested agencies. A dedicated resource centre could create and maintain databases of documents, tools, experiences and act as a hub for further exchanges as well as learning opportunities (e.g. Utstein Anti- Corruption Centre or DFID’s Governance Resource Centre). • Identify and document examples of ‘do no harm’ policies, possibly including past negative impacts and how they can be overcome to demonstrate one of the most visible values of the approach. • Invest in identifying useable human rights indicators to: measure the impact of human rights projects and mainstreaming initiatives; serve as baselines and indicators at a country level; and inform aid allocation and aid modality decisions. This work should build on existing initiatives (e.g. Metagora, World Bank Institute, OHCHR, etc.) and aim to document experiences with a view to informing a DAC position. With regards to working with national and international partners: • In order to further promote human rights as part of nationally owned strategies, the GOVNET initiative should plan how it can involve a wider constituency beyond bilateral and multilateral agencies. Following the planned October workshop, a wider consultative process could be envisaged. To build wide ownership and draw on considerable country-based on NGO experiences, it would need to include: o partner governments o parliamentarians, such as parliamentary human rights committees o national human rights institutions o national civil society organisations o international NGOs 45 With regards to aid policies and modalities, the GOVNET could: • Document existing approaches to using human rights to inform decisions on aid allocations and modalities in a way that is not reduced to the use of selectivity and conditionality and which goes beyond project-based aid. There is much potential cross-fertilisation with the fragile states agenda here. • Respond to Paragraph 42 of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness which encourages donors to harmonise on cross-cutting issues. This could serve as a high-level entry point for donors to work towards harmonising their approaches to human rights. • The implementation of human rights policies could be systematically examined in the DAC mutual reviews so as to encourage the application of existing commitments and share good experiences. • In order to promote the use of human rights on both sides of ‘mutual accountability frameworks’, the human rights obligations of donor governments and multilateral agencies could be further examined, as well as the impact of donor assistance on the realisation of human rights in partner countries. • Experiences of donors which explicitly include human rights in such frameworks could be documented and shared to promote good practice. In order to revisit current approaches to conditionality, GOVNET could discuss the following set of principles for the design and application of conditionality. • Establish clear aims and objectives and transparent purpose with regards to dialogue and conditionality, so as to be consistent with predictability and partnership commitments. • As far as possible, use conditions found in existing partner governments’ commitments, such as constitutions, PRSs and other national frameworks, as well as the relevant international and regional human rights instruments. • Improve the understanding of partner countries’ political trajectories and how internal forces may respond to external pressures. • Prefer coordinated donor action, preferably using multilateral channels, for consistency of message and likelihood of impact. • Invest in the nature and quality of the dialogue process, and balance positive incentives (‘carrots’) rather than focusing solely on ‘sticks’. • Maintain minimum ‘bottom lines’ to allow principled actions by donors if all else fails, based on public commitments set in overall aid agreements. With regards to fragile states, members of the Task Team could, either in the DAC context or within their own agencies, explore ways in which human rights can be more explicitly linked to this agenda, drawing out similarities with existing human rights initiatives. Suggestions, starting with the current DAC initiatives and the 10 principles for engagement, include: • using human rights analysis as part of ‘understanding the context’ and in adopting a ‘prevention mode’ by focusing on the root causes of state fragility; • understanding the fragile states ‘do no harm’ principle as applying not just to state capacity but also to the fundamental rights of the populations; • using human rights commitment as a way of identifying ‘national reformers’; • considering civilian protection as the entry point to addressing human rights in violent conflict and humanitarian crises; • using human security in relation to fragile states and security agendas, as it integrates a focus on human dimensions and therefore human rights; • exploring the human rights duties of the international community in such situations, such as arguments surrounding ‘the responsibility to protect’; 46  • better understanding the tensions between human rights, conflict resolution and humanitarian assistance so as to promote a consistent approach (this could build on planned work by Sida comparing conflict and human rights which will be shared with the DAC Conflict Network in February 2006). In order to promote more harmonised approaches, Task Team members might wish to pilot human rights programming, including policy dialogue, in a selected number of countries, for example where UN and bilateral agencies have made most progress. This could range from collaborating more closely on ongoing initiatives, and documenting joint work, to a more ambitious approach where new work could be undertaken with a GOVNET mandate in the context of enhanced harmonisation of towards human rights at country level: • selected countries in the Asia-Pacific region where the UN system has made progress and where bilaterals have a presence; • Kenya, where Sida is piloting its mainstreaming, or other countries in Africa where bilaterals and the UN may be active; • Latin America (e.g. Bolivia, Peru), where non-discrimination/exclusion work is already well advanced; • places where other agencies, such as the Dutch, GZT or HURIST are also piloting human rights initiatives. 47 6. Mains findings and recommendations 6.1 Main findings There are a number of key messages for the Task Team which emerge from this study and should inform future GOVNET and DAC action. The study has in particular confirmed that there is a clear gap in the DAC’s policy processes and documentation, with no substantive work on human rights since the late 1990s. This does not reflect the reality of agencies’ current work. This initiative is therefore highly relevant for the DAC as a whole given the cross-cutting nature of human rights. It also has meaning beyond the DAC, given the value of bringing together representatives across such a large number of bilateral and multilateral agencies with a common purpose. The study has identified a significant number of new policies, as well as accompanying tools, guidance documents and programming experiences. This demonstrates that work on human rights has not been limited to policy pronouncements but has also started to impact on practice. Policies and activities can be found across a wide range of agencies, from bilaterals to multilaterals, as well as a multitude of civil society and INGOs interventions that are not documented here. Human rights are therefore not limited to a handful of agencies, but are instead becoming a regular feature of development cooperation. This is not a static field: conferences, evaluations, stocktaking exercises and training workshops are ongoing. Commonalities across agencies include: • the focus on positive approaches; • the tendency to (still) see human rights through a governance lens; • growing efforts to mainstream human rights in other sectors; • continued difficulties with human rights dialogues and conditionality; • attempts to use human rights strategically at a wide range of levels. Differences, based on the rationales adopted by agencies, and the extent to which they feel they can associate directly with the international human rights framework, have led to what may be described as a five-part typology, ranging from human rights-based approaches (towards which the UN and a number of bilaterals are moving) to human rights projects and ‘implicit’ approaches. Weaknesses, for the purpose of this study, have included the degree to which agencies have internally invested in documenting and learning from their own experiences, though there is documentation which could be further probed and some agencies have been particularly good in this area. The study has identified three broad challenges to which the Task Team needs to respond. The GOVNET process creates opportunities to deepen institutionalisation within agencies by creating an inter-agency momentum and possibilities for collaboration beyond the DAC. It needs to engage creatively with national partners who may have limited capacity or commitment to deliver on their human rights obligations. And, by engaging with the DAC aid effectiveness initiatives, it can break new grounds in the under-developed domain of new aid policies and aid modalities. These findings present a potentially large agenda for action. It will be important for the Task Team to prioritise which steps it should take within the GOVNET and DAC context. The next sub-section identifies ten priority areas for action, drawing on the longer and more detailed recommendations which have been put forward in the study. 48 6.2 Main recommendations The GOVNET Human Rights and Development Task Team has started an important initiative. It offers the possibility of updating DAC statements related to human rights and of undertaking joint actions with a view to developing guidance based on good practice. In addition, it can explore areas which have been left under-examined to date. On the basis of these findings, this study offers the following recommendations to guide the work of the GOVNET Human Rights and Development Task Team. 1. Map out a process. The study has identified a number of commonalities across agencies. Given remaining differences in approaches and experiences to-date, this study, the October 2005 workshop and 2006 action-oriented policy, should be seen as the first in a series of steps, with a view to the more systematic, strategic and harmonised integration of human rights into development cooperation. This could encompass an updated policy document, as well as efforts to deepen learning based on current initiatives, to examine new areas, to undertake joint practical actions and to prepare practical guidance at a later stage. 2. Involve a wider constituency. In order to further promote human rights as part of nationally-owned development strategies, the GOVNET initiative should involve a wider constituency of actors beyond bilateral and multilateral agencies. Following the October 2005 workshop, a wider consultative process should be envisaged with national government partners and civil society actors, nationally and internationally. 3. Update DAC policy statements. There is a need to update existing DAC statements so as to better reflect current knowledge and consensus on the integration of human rights into development and to promote good practice. 4. Invest in internal lesson learning. The GOVNET initiative should catalyse agencies into investing to a greater extent in documenting existing experiences and improving internal lesson learning on human rights in order to inform their own policy development and practices, and form the basis for harmonised policies and approaches. 5. Undertake joint learning initiatives. There are a number of specific issues for joint research and analysis which the Task Team should prioritise as part of its action-oriented policy and guidance preparation, concentrating on fewer agencies or narrower themes than in the present study. • A study of a governance sub-area where there has been a demonstrated policy and programming shift as a result of the strategic use of human rights. • A study of achievements and impacts within a small set of identical non- governance sectors or themes. • A study on human rights dialogue and the impact of conditionality. • A study identifying and documenting good examples of ‘do no harm’ policies and associated mechanisms to monitor the human rights impact of agencies. 6. Plan and undertake joint pilots. Members of the Task Team could agree to undertake a number of joint piloting initiatives at a country or regional level in order to harmonise their approaches in the field and 'learn by doing'. This could include: • Collaborating more closely in ongoing programming initiatives (projects/ mainstreaming) where a multilateral or bilateral is already well advanced. • Undertaking and documenting joint dialogue efforts. • With a GOVNET mandate, piloting new harmonised approaches to human rights. 49 7. Engage in aid effectiveness debates. The preparation of a DAC policy statement and guidance on the strategic integration of human rights for development would benefit from consultation with other DAC bodies, such as the poverty network and the gender network. However, on the basis of this study’s findings, we recommend that priority be given to joint action with the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness and Donor Practices, thus responding to paragraph 42 of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness which encourages donors to harmonise on cross-cutting issues. A key objective would be to address the relevance of human rights in new aid modalities and revisit current approaches to political conditionality, for example agreeing a set of good practice principles. 8. Collaborate on fragile states. The DAC Learning and Advisory Process on Difficult Partnerships has facilitated collaboration between GOVNET and the DAC Network on Conflict, Peace and Development. The priority here would be to understand the reasons for the relative absence of human rights from the current fragile states agenda and DAC piloting exercise, and demonstrate where and how human rights could be made explicit and relevant. There is already work on human rights and conflict within the DAC Conflict Network, which could serve as an entry point for joint exploration of some of these issues. 9. Collaborate across GOVNET themes. The apparent failure to have applied a human rights perspective to wider aspects of the governance agenda suggests that there could be a reflection on the other themes currently prioritised within GOVNET. Comparing the findings of the drivers of change/power analysis study with the present one could offer practical lessons on the relationship between political economy and human rights analyses. Other issues which could be examined at a later date include: applying lessons from the capacity development work to human rights; understanding how, given their joint concern for the rule of law, human rights and anti-corruption initiatives can strengthen one another; or connecting work on governance indicators with debates on human rights indicators. 10. Continue to collaborate beyond the DAC. Finally, there are a number of other areas where the members of the Task Team should continue to collaborate beyond this ongoing DAC GOVNET initiative. The priorities here are: • Establish a mechanism to enable agencies to learn more systematically from one another and wider national or international efforts on human rights and development, such as through a dedicated resource centre. • Continue to fund and coordinate initiatives aimed at strengthening the human rights system and mainstreaming human rights within the UN. • Continue to invest in initiatives that facilitate exchanges and ’translation’ between the development and human rights communities. 50 Annexes 51  Annex 1: Terms of Reference Synthesis and Analysis of Donor Experiences with Human Rights-based Approaches to Development and Integrating Human Rights into Development Programming (25 February 2005) Background 1. There is increasing recognition in the international community that development and human rights are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. Development is about expanding freedoms and people taking control over their lives. Voice, accountability, inclusive participation, equality and non-discrimination are becoming essential elements of both poverty reduction and growth with equity. This has led many donors (and international development NGOs, too) to look at human rights as a means for reducing poverty and implementing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Some have explicitly adopted a human rights-based approach to development (HRBA), others have integrated human rights explicitly or rather implicitly into the various dimensions of their development work (policies, strategies, programming), especially into their governance agendas. Various reviews of these approaches now exist and some preliminary experiences have been documented. 2. At the 5th meeting of the GOVNET in March 2004, an informal group of donors interested in the nexus of development and human rights – which later became the GOVNET Human Rights and Development Task Team – presented findings of reviews and shared policy statements. It was agreed that human rights would be fully integrated into the GOVNET agenda and that the nexus of development and human rights deserves a more consistent and systematic effort at sharing and analyzing of approaches, experiences and lessons amongst donors. 3. At the 6th meeting of the GOVNET in January 2005, the objectives of the Task Team were reaffirmed and made more concrete. There was agreement on a work programme for a two-year mandate. Its major output will be an action-oriented policy paper that will be submitted for endorsement to the GOVNET and then the DAC in 2006. The objectives of this paper will be to increase donor coherence on human rights issues in development and – based on emerging good practice – to provide guidance to donors interested in HRBAs and integrating human rights into their development work. Main intermediary steps include: (i) a study “Synthesis and Analysis of Donor Experiences with Human Rights-based Approaches to Development and Integrating Human Rights into Development Programming” to be finalised in September 2005; based on its findings (ii) a workshop on “Human Rights- based Approaches to Development and Integrating Human Rights into Development Programming” to be held back to back with the next GOVNET Meeting in October 2005. 4. These Terms of Reference only cover the study “Synthesis and Analysis of Donor Experiences with Human Rights-based Approaches to Development and Integrating Human Rights into Development Programming”. Purpose of the study 5. The Task Team and the GOVNET have agreed that a synthesis and analysis of donor policies and experiences is a key step. The issue of HRBAs and the integration of human rights into the various dimensions of development work is relatively new, and it is important for donors to learn from each others’ experiences in this area, as 52 well as to share solutions for overcoming the difficulties inherent in this type of work. This is all the more important as the MDG agenda as well as emphasis on partner country development priorities and ownership, combined with aid modalities such as sector-wide approaches and budget financing, involve both new opportunities and conceptual and practical challenges. 6. The Study will also help specify the nexus of human rights and governance issues, especially but not exclusively those on the GOVNET agenda: anti-corruption, capacity development, power and drivers of change analysis, decentralization, rule of law, pay reform and governance indicators. In addition, it will review relevant donor experiences with the realization of rights in a comprehensive manner. 7. The Study will form the basis of the Workshop at which donors will (i) discuss the achievements and good practices identified as well as the challenges faced, (ii) clarify the major elements of the future action-oriented policy paper and (iii) discuss the appropriate next steps to be taken. Focus and scope of the study 8. The Study will identify the current practice in this field, will look at the common elements of that practice, identify tools and “do’s and don’ts”, and will identify steps on how to improve the practice. It will do so by mapping existing studies (not recreating them); explaining the rationales used for adopting human rights approaches to development; compiling and analysing donor experiences with a view to extracting best practices and results – with a particular although not exclusive focus on governance-related programming; and looking at any challenges and strategies to address those challenges that might arise when looking at human rights in the development context. It will take into consideration differences in donors’ mandates and roles. It will also place these issues and experiences in the context of the major international development paradigms such as the MDG agenda, donor harmonization, emphasis on partner country development priorities and ownership, mutual accountability and aid modalities such as sector-wide approaches and budget financing. 9. The Study will contain the following elements: i. a mapping of existing studies on HRBAs and integrating human rights into development work. Several studies exist that compile positions and policies on human rights in the development context. The Study should not recreate these other documents, but rather analyse the common elements in these studies and, where necessary, identify any gaps in the existing research. ii. a review of the rationales used for adopting HRBAs or integrating human rights into development. Agencies and organizations may have various reasons for bringing human rights and development closer together. The Study should review the similarities as well as the differences of these rationales. iii. a compilation of the experiences of bilateral and multilateral donors and agencies with HRBAs and the integration of human rights into their development work. iv. an analysis of these experiences. While it may be quite early to expect a broad range of experiences with this issue, the Study should, where possible, focus on lessons learned, results expected or achieved (including any performance measurement lessons) and value added (also through specific efforts in areas such as gender equality and inclusion of minorities, if relevant). 53  v. an overview of how donors’ work on human rights reflects the MDG agenda as well as the new opportunities and conceptual and practical challenges involved in the emphasis on partner country development priorities and ownership, sector-wide approaches and budget financing. vi. a compilation of challenges encountered and any strategies for addressing those challenges. Implementation a) Methodology 10. The consultants will: ƒ familiarise themselves with the work of the DAC/GOVNET. ƒ review existing literature and studies on HRBAs and the integration of human rights into development and draw out common or key elements of these studies. ƒ gather information on the work of bilateral and multilateral donor agencies to examine and analyse their experiences to date, lessons learned, case studies, examples of performance measurement (e.g., indicators, results statements, etc). ƒ use literature reviews and interviews as the main methods of gathering experiences. ƒ present the findings of the synthesis report at the Workshop to be held back to back with the next GOVNET meeting in October 2005. b) Inputs and competencies 11. The consultants will work with the DAC Secretariat and the Human Rights and Development Task Team to identify existing studies to be reviewed and possible additional sources of experiences. 12. It is expected that up to a total of 40 person-days will be required for this work. 13. The consultants will need to have strong knowledge of human rights and development issues. They will also need to have working understanding of governance approaches and current approaches to aid effectiveness. 14. Strong writing and presentation skills are also valuable for this consultancy. c) Timing 15. The Consultancy is expected to take place from 1 April 2005 or as soon as possible thereafter. The first draft of the final report is due for submission to the DAC/GOVNET Secretariat by the end of June 2005, the final report by end of July 2005. It is expected that the consultants will meet with members of the core Task Team and the DAC/GOVNET Secretariat to submit and discuss an inception report that they’ll have prepared (no later than end of April 2005, probably in Berne). d) Reporting 16. The consultants will produce the following outputs written in English and provided in both hard copy and electronic format: 54  ƒ an inception report (an outline of no more than 2 pages on how consultants will deal with the issue) to be produced and discussed with the core Task Team and the DAC/GOVNET Secretariat shortly after the official start date of the contract ƒ a synthesis report (a paper of no more than 20 pages with appendices as necessary) ƒ a two-page executive summary identifying the main lessons learned and conclusions. 17. The consultants shall report to the DAC/GOVNET Secretariat, in consultation with the Task Team’s core group, and with the entire Task Team on Human Rights and Development. 18. The contract assignment will be entered into between the DAC/GOVNET Secretariat and the consultants. 55 Annex 2: List of Persons Interviewed Date Name Position/agency 16 May Jane Alexander and Governance Advisors, Exclusion, Rights and Neil Satchwell-Smith Justice Team, Policy Division, Department for International Development, UK Lee Waldorf Human Rights Advisor, UNIFEM 17 May Rauno Merisaari Good Governance and Human Rights Advisor, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Finland 18 May Birgitta Tazelaar Human Rights Desk, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Netherlands Patrick van Weerelt Human Rights Advisor, Democratic Governance Group, Bureau for Development Policy, United Nations Development Programme 20 May Charles Whiteley DG External Relations, European Commission Franziska Walter Human Rights, Democratisation and Peacebuilding, Austrian Development Agency Maria-Luisa Silva Research and Right to Development Branch, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mac Darrow Coordinator, HURIST Programme, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights 23 May Peter Ashman Human Rights and Democracy, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK 24 May Christiane Desk Officer, Governance, Human Rights and Hieronymus Gender Division, German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development Karim Marcos Administrator, Governance and Conflict Prevention, Policy Coordination Division, Development Cooperation Directorate, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Beverley Turnbull Advisor, Governance and Human Rights, Strategy, Advisory and Evaluation Group, New Zealand Agency for International Development 25 May Monique Bergeron Programme Analyst, Performance Management Strategy, Strategic Planning and Technical Services Africa Branch, Canadian International Development Agency (and formerly GovNet) Sarita Bhatla Director, Human Rights and Participation Division, Policy Branch, Canadian International Development Agency 56  Garett Pratt Policy Analyst, Human Rights and Participation Division, Policy Branch, Canadian International Development Agency 26 May Monica Canafoglia Global Policy Section, Division of Policy and Planning, UNICEF Donelle Wheeler Counsellor, Development Cooperation, Australian Delegation to the OECD Rahel Boesch Advisor, Human rights and Access to Justice, Governance Division, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation 27 May Anton Mair Head of Unit, Evaluation, Development Policy and Strategy, Foreign Ministry, Austria Lisa Fredriksson Programme Coordinator for Human Rights and Rule of Law, Division for Democratic Governance, Department for Democracy and Social Development, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency José Garzon Head, Rule of Law Division, Office of Democracy and Governance, Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, United States Agency for International Development 31 May Konrad Huber Senior Human Rights Advisor, Office of Transition Initiatives, Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, United States Agency for International Development Leah Werchick Human Rights Advisor, Office of Transition Initiatives, Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, United States Agency for International Development 1 June Emeline Saunier Assistant Governance Advisor, Security & Development Team, Policy Division, Department for International Development, UK 2 June Helena Nygren-Krug Health and Human Rights Advisor, World Heath Organization Ana Angarita Human Rights Advisor, United Nations Population Fund Sahana Dharmapuri Women in Development, Economic Growth and and Mary Knox Trade Bureau, United States Agency for International Development 3 June Thomas METAGORA Coordination Team, Organisation Heimgartner for Economic Development and Cooperation 8 June Emilie Filmer-Wilson Independent Consultant 9 June Joseph Ingram Special Representative, Geneva, World Bank 57  10 June Siobhan McInerney- Counsel, ESSD & International Law, Legal Lankford Department, World Bank Informal consultation with UK NGOs Date Name Position/Agency 8 June Guy Cave Save the Children Siddo Deva Oxfam Emilie Filmer-Wilson Independent Consultant Jay Goulden CARE Mandy Heslop HelpAge International Rajat Khosla Human Rights Centre, University of Essex Corrine Lennox Minority Rights Group Meeting with Sida HQ and field staff Date Name Position/Agency 13 June Lisa Fredriksson Division for Democratic Governance Helena Bjuremalm Division for Democratic Governance Brigitta Jansson Division for Democratic Governance Fredrik Uggla Evaluation Department Kerstin Lundgren Peace and Conflict Division Christine Lundberg Geneva Programme Officer Mikael Johansson Regional Democracy and Human Rights Advisor, Zimbabwe Johan Hallenborg (new) Regional Democracy and Human Rights Advisor, Bangkok David Wiking Regional Democracy and Human Rights Advisor, Kenya Annika Programme Officer for Democratic Governance, Nordin Jajawardena Kenya 58 Annex 3: References Multi-donor studies, academic publications and other miscellaneous Appleyard, Susan (2002) A Rights-Based Approach to Development: What the Policy Documents of the UN, Development Cooperation and NGO Agencies Say. OHCHR Asia-Pacific. Alston, Philip (2004) A Human Rights Perspective on the Millennium Development Goals. UN Millennium Task Force. Burnell, P. (1994) ‘Good Government and Democratization: A Sideways Look at Aid and Political Conditionality’, Democratization 1 (3): 485-503. Carothers, Thomas (1999) Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Carothers, Thomas (2003) Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad: The Problem of Knowledge. Working Paper, Rule of Law Series. Democracy and Rule of Law Project. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Crawford, G. (1997) ‘Foreign Aid and Political Conditionality: Issues of Effectiveness and Consistency’, Democratization, 4 (3): 69-108. El Obaid, Ahmed and Lamontagne, Véronique (2002) Rights-based Approaches to Development: Key Principles and a Review of Recent Policies and Practices. Report prepared for Governance and Social Policies Division, CIDA, July, draft. Frankovits, Andrew and Earle, Patrick (2000) Report of the Donor Workshop: Working Together: The Human Rights-based Approach to Development Cooperation: Stockholm Workshop 16-19 October. Harrison, G. (2001) ‘Post-Conditionality Politics and Administrative Reform: Reflections on the Cases of Uganda and Tanzania’, Development and Change 32: 657-79. InWent (2003) Human Rights in Developing Countries: Conference Papers and CD Rom. Minority Rights Group International (2004) An Examination of Approaches by International Development Agencies to Minority Issues in Development. Sub- Commission on Human Rights, 56th session. Nguyen, Flore (2002) Emerging Features of a Rights-Based Development Policy of UN, Development Cooperation and NGO Agencies. OHCHR Asia-Pacific. Discussion Paper. Nyamu-Musembi, Celestine and Cornwall, Andrea (2004) What is the ‘Rights-Based Approach’ All About? Perspectives from International Development Agencies. IDS Working Paper No. 234. Brighton: Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. Norwegian Centre for Human Rights (2004) The Oslo Workshop: Human Rights, Equity and Development. Oslo, 11-23 October. Santiso, C. (2003) ‘Responding to Democratic Decay and Crises of Governance: The European Union and the Convention of Cotonou’, Democratization 10 (3): 148-72. Save the Children Sweden (2003) Report from Workshop on Rights-Based Approaches, 13-14 February. Sen, Amartya (1999) Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stokke, O. (ed.) (1995) Aid and Political Conditionality. London: Frank Cass. UNDP (1998) Symposium on Human Development and Human Rights: Oslo, 2-3 October. Uvin, Peter (2004) Human Rights and Development. Bloomfield: Kumarian Press. Various (2004) ‘Rights and Development In Latin America: A Working Seminar: Summary Report’. Santiago, December. 59 Australia AusAid (2001) Putting Things to Rights: The Use of Foreign Aid to Advance Human Rights in Developing Nations. Submission from AusAid to the Human Rights Sub- Committee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade on its Inquiry into the Link between Aid and Human Rights. Austria Austrian Development Cooperation (2001) ‘Juvenile Justice Hardap Region Mid- Term Review of the Projects A and B, The Bridge in the period January 1999 to December 2001’. Austrian Development Cooperation (2003) ‘Child Justice Namibia’. Project Document. Austrian Development Cooperation (2004) Ethiopia: Subprogram on Gender and Democracy: 2004-6. Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs (2004) Three-Year-Programme 2004-2006 on Austrian Development Policy. Canada CIDA (nd a) ‘Backgrounder on Human Rights Approaches to Development Pilot, Egypt’. CIDA (nd b) ‘Child Rights Tools: Child Protection Literature’. CIDA (nd c) ‘Human Rights-based Approaches to Development: Examples of CIDA support through the Canadian Partnership Branch’. CIDA (1996) Government of Canada Policy for CIDA on Human Rights, Democratization and Good Governance. CIDA (1999) CIDA’s Policy on Gender Equality. CIDA (2001) CIDA's Action Plan on Child Protection. CIDA (2002) Canada Making a Difference in the World. A Policy Statement on Strengthening Aid and Effectiveness, September. CIDA (2003a) Children as Partners: Annotated Bibliography. CIDA (2003b) RBM and Children’s Participation: A Guide to Incorporating Child Participation Results into CIDA Programs. CIDA (2004a) ‘Assessment of Human Rights Approaches to Development in the Egypt Program: TORs (draft)’. CIDA (2004b) ‘References to Human Rights and Human Rights Language within CIDA's Social Development Priorities’. Prepared by Child Protection Unit, Policy Branch. CIDA (2005) Canada's International Policy Statement: A Role of Pride and Influence in the World: Development. Cockburn, Gail (2000) Meaningful Youth Participation in International Conferences: A Case Study. Lansdown, Gerison (nd) Evolving Capacities and Participation: Children as Partners. Rothman, Margot (2003) ‘Mid-Term Review of CIDA’s Action Plan on Child Protection’. European Commission Braithwaite, M. et al. (2003) Thematic Evaluation of the Integration of Gender in EC Development Cooperation with Third Countries. Brusset, E., Achilli, E and Tiberghien, C. (2001) Synthesis Report on EC Activities in the Field of Human Rights, Democracy and Good Governance. 60 Council of the European Union (2004) EU: Annual Report on Human Rights 2004. EC (2000) The European Community’s Development Policy. Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament, Brussels. EU (2001a) European Union Guidelines on Human rights Dialogues (website). EU (2001b) European Union Guidelines towards Third Countries on Torture. EC (2001c) The European Union’s Role in Promoting Human Rights and Democratisation in Third Countries. Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament, Brussels. EC (2003) Reinvigorating EU Actions on Human Rights and Democratisation with Mediterranean Partners: Strategic Guidelines. Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament, Brussels. EC (2004a) ‘Ensuring Protection: European Union Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders’. EC (2004b) ‘European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR): Programming for 2005 and 2006.’ EC (2005a) ‘Draft Handbook on Promoting Good Governance in EC Development and Cooperation’. EC (2005b) ‘European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR): Programming Update for 2005’. Finland MFA (1996) Decision in Principle on Finland's Development Cooperation. MFA (2000) Democracy and Human Rights: A Pathway to Peace and Development. MFA (2004) Development Policy: Government Resolution 2004. Germany BMZ (2004) Every Person has a Right to Development: Development Policy Action Plan on Human Rights 2004-7. GTZ (2005) ‘Good Practices on Governance’. GTZ (2004) Human Rights in International Cooperation. KfW (2004) Promotion of Developing Countries: Human Rights, December. Lingnau, Hildegard (2003) Human Rights Approach for German Development Cooperation. Study conducted on behalf of GTZ. Bonn: German Development Institute. HURIST (UNDP/OHCHR) Banerjee, U. D., Morris, C. and Wojkowska, E. (2005) ‘UNDP Indonesia: Strengthening Access to Justice and the Rule of Law in Conflict-Affected Provinces: Process Lessons Learnt while designing a Rights-based Approach to Programming’. Draft, HURIST. Hijab, Nadia (2005) Human Rights Review of UNDP Programmes: Issues Arising from the Pilot Phase. HURIST. Hijab, Nadia et al. (2005) Report to UNDP Brazil: Human Rights Programme Review. HURIST Mission Team. HURIST (2005) ‘Summaries of Human Rights reviews of UNDP Programmes’. Workshop 1-2 March. Uganda Human Rights Commission (2002) Towards a Strategy for Promoting Human Rights-based Development in Uganda. UNDP, OHCHR and UNOPS (2005) HURIST: Evaluation Mission Report, May-July. 61 Norway NORAD (1999) NORAD Invests in the Future: NORAD's Strategy for 2000-2005. NORAD (2001) Handbook in Human Rights Assessment: State Obligations, Awareness and Empowerment. Netherlands Directorate-General for International Cooperation (2003) Mutual Interests, Mutual Responsibilities: Dutch Development Cooperation en route to 2015. Dutch Advisory Council on Foreign Affairs (2003) A Human Rights-based Approach to Development Cooperation. MFA (2004) (nd) ‘Background Document: Good Governance: Perspective on Development’. MFA (2004) ‘Good Governance Guidance Note’. MFA (2001) 2001 Memorandum on Human Rights Policy. MFA (2004) Track Record User Guide: What Level of Alignment if Possible and What Are the Corresponding Aid Modalities. New Zealand NZAID (2002) Human Rights Policy Statement. NZAID (2004a) ‘Pacific Islands Human Rights Consultation, Suva, Fiji Islands, 1-3 June, 2004: Concluding Statement and Recommendations’. NZAID (2004b) NZAID Human Rights Policy: Implementation Plan of Action 2004/9. OECD DAC DAC (1997) Final Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Participatory Development and Good Governance. DAC (2001) The DAC Guidelines: Poverty Reduction. DAC (2003) Harmonising Donor Practices for Effective Aid Delivery. DAC Guidelines and Reference Series. DAC (2005) Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. DAC (2005) ‘Piloting the Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile States. Draft Concept Note’. OECD (2005) ‘What is Metagora Accomplishing? Summary of Intermediary Project Results as of 13 May 2005.’ OHCHR Hunt Paul, Osmani, Siddiq and Nowak, Manfred (2003) Draft Guidelines: Human Rights Approach to Poverty Reduction Strategies. OHCHR (nd) The Human Rights Approach to Development: Asia Pacific Lessons Learnt Project Concept Note. OHCHR (2004) ‘The Human Rights Approach to Development: Asia-Pacific Lessons Learned Project: Concept Note’. OHCHR (2005) ‘Frequently Asked Questions and Answers on a Human Rights- based Approach to Development.’ Draft. OHCHR/UNDP (2004) Methodology and Tools for Human Rights-based Assessment and Analysis. Rights-based Municipal Assessment and Planning Project. O’Neill, Bill (2004) Human Rights-based Approach to CCA and UNDAF: Good Practices and Lessons Learned from the 2003 Roll-outs. Geneva:OHCHR 62 Piron, L.-H. (2004) The Right to Development: Study on Existing Bilateral and Multilateral Programmes and Policies for Development Partnership. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2004/15, Commission on Human Rights. Robinson, Mary (2000) ‘Development and Rights: The Undeniable Nexus’. Speech (available at http://www.unhchr.ch). UN (2004) The Role of Good Governance in the Promotion of Human Rights. E/CN.4/2005/97, Commission on Human Rights. UN Commission on Human Rights (2000) The Role of Good Governance in the Promotion of Human Rights, resolution 2000/64. Switzerland Ashen, Saman (2004) ‘The Girl Child Project: A Silent Revolution’, Blue Chip 1 (3) (available at www.bluechipmag.com/ci/art16.html). Piron, Laure-Hélène and Court, Julius (2003) Independent Evaluation of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation Human Rights Policy Guidelines and Rule of Law Concept Document. SDC (1997) Promoting Human Rights in Development Cooperation. SDC (1998) The Rule of Law Concept: Significance in Development Cooperation. SDC (2002) ‘Mainstreaming Human Rights in SDC Country Programmes. Case Study: Pakistan’. Paper presented at Conference on ‘Promoting a Human Rights Approach in Development Cooperation’, Stockholm, 17-19 October. SDC (2003) Governance Division, Medium Term Strategy, 2003-2007. SDC (2005) Towards a Life in Dignity: Realising Rights for Poor People. August. Swiss Federal Council (2005) Millennium Development Goals: Progress Report of Switzerland 2005. Sweden Bye, V., Doggett, M. and Hellmers, P. (1999) Diakonia Program For Democracy and Human Rights, the El Salvador Case: A Qualified Monitoring. Sida Evaluation 99/16, Appendix. Sida. Department for Policy and Methodology (2005a) Goal, Perspectives and Central Components Elements. Complement to Perspectives on Poverty. Sida. Department for Policy and Methodology (2005b) Sharpening the Poverty Focus in Programmes and Projects Supported by Sida – Preliminary Guidelines from POM. Sida. Forss, K (2002) Finding out about Results from Projects and Programmes Concerning Democratic Governance and Human Rights. Sida. Frederiksen, Lisa (2003) ‘Swedish Experiences of the Human Rights-Based Approach. Presentation at Inwent Seminar. Government of Sweden (1997a) Human Rights in Swedish Foreign Policy. Government Communication SKR 1997/98: 89. Government of Sweden (1997b) Democracy and Human Rights in Sweden's Development Cooperation. Government communication SKR 1997/98: 76. Government of Sweden (2001) The Rights of the Child as a Perspective in Development Cooperation. Government Communication 2001/02: 186. Government of Sweden (2002) Shared Responsibility: Sweden’s Policy for Global Development, Government Bill 2002/03: 122. Government of Sweden (2003) Human Rights in Swedish Foreign Policy: Government Communication 2003/04:20 (updated version of 1997/8 communication) Johnstin, Anton, Sida and MFA (2002) ‘Preparing the Swedish Country Strategy for Zimbabwe from a Democracy and Human Rights Perspective’. Summary Report, October. Sida. Rubenson, B (2002) Health and Human Rights. Sida. 63 Sida (1997) Justice and Peace: Sida’s Programme for Peace, Democracy and Human Rights. Sida (1999) The Rights of the Child in Swedish Development Cooperation. Sida (2000a) ‘Summary Report: Preparing the Swedish Country Strategy for Zimbabwe from a Democracy and Human Rights Perspective’. Sida (2000b) The Evaluability of Democracy and Human Rights Projects. SIDA Studies in Evaluation. Sida (2001a) Country Strategy Development: Guide for Country Analysis from a Democratic Governance and Human Rights Perspective. Sida (2001b) Education, Democracy and Human Rights in Swedish Development Cooperation. Position Paper. Sida (2001c) Education for All: A Human Right and Basic Need. Policy for Sida’s Development Cooperation in the Education Sector. Sida (2002) Perspectives on Poverty. Sida (2003a) Digging Deeper: Four Reports on Democratic Governance in International Development Cooperation Summary. Sida (2003b) Sida at Work: Sida’s Methods for Development Cooperation (updated version of 1997). Sida (2003c) The Child Rights Perspective in Practice. Sida’s report in response to the Government’s Annual Directives. Sida (2005) ‘Sida’s Policy for Gender Equality in Development Cooperation’. Draft. Sida and MFA (2001) A Democracy and Human Rights-based Approach to Development Cooperation. Wiking, David (2004) ‘Mainstreaming of Democracy and Human Rights’. A summary of a seminar at the Swedish embassy in Addis Abeba. Sida. United Kingdom Beall, J. and Piron, L.-H. (2004) DFID Social Exclusion Review. London: LSE/ODI. CDS Swansea/Edinburgh Resource Centre (2002) PRAMs: Linking Participation and International Change. DFID (1997) Eliminating World Poverty: A Challenge for the 21st Century. White Paper on International Development. Cm. 3789. DFID (2000a) Eliminating World Poverty: Making Globalisation Work for the Poor, White Paper on International Development, December. Cm. 5006. DFID (2000b) Justice and Poverty Reduction. Safety, Security and Access to Justice Policy Statement. DFID (2000c) Poverty Elimination and the Empowerment of Women. DFID (2000d) Realising Human Rights for Poor People. Target Strategy Paper. DFID (2001) Making Government Work for Poor People: Building State Capability. DFID (2002) Putting Policy into Practice. Safety, Security and Access to Justice Guidance Note. DFID (2004) Guidance on Support to Non-State Justice and Security Systems, DFID (2005a) Alliances Against Poverty: DFID’s Experience in Peru 2000-2005. London: DFID. DFID (2005b) How to Reduce Maternal Deaths: Rights and Responsibilities. ‘How to’ Note. DFID (2005c) Partnerships for Poverty Reduction: Rethinking Conditionality. A UK Policy Paper. London: DFID. DFID Governance Department (2001) The Media in Governance: A Guide to Assistance. DFID Governance Department (2003) Elections and the Electoral Process: A guide to Assistance. 2nd Edition. DFID South Africa (2001) Rights-Based and Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches: Divergences and Convergences, October, Pretoria. 64 Filmer-Wilson, Emilie (2005) DFID Summary Report of Material Collated Regarding Practical Guidance to Implementing Rights-based Approaches, Human Rights Analyses for Poverty Reduction and Human Rights Benchmarks from Development Actors and Other Relevant Communities (summary only). Foreign and Commonwealth Office (2003) Human Rights: Annual Report 2003. London: Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Piron, Laure-Hélène (2003) Learning from the UK Department for International Development’s Rights-based Approach to Development Assistance. London: Overseas Development Institute. Piron, Laure-Hélène and Watkins, Francis (2004) DFID Human Rights Review: A Review of how DFID has Integrated Human Rights into its Work. Report for DFID. London: ODI. Piron, Laure-Hélène and de Renzio, Paolo (2005) Empirical Study in the Application of Political Conditionality and PRBS in Africa 1999-2004. Report for DFID. London: ODI (restricted). Hawkins, K., Newman, K., Thomas, D. and Carlson, C. (2004) Developing a Human Rights-Based Approach to Addressing Maternal Mortality: Desk Review. DFID Health Resource Centre. Watkins, Francis (2003) ‘A Review of Gender Mainstreaming in DFID’s Country Assistance Plans’, Report for Evaluation Department, DFID. United Nations Committee on the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2003). The Right to Water. General Comment 15. E/C.12/2002/11. FAO (2004) Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Food. UN (1993) Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. World Conference on Human Rights. 14-25 June. UN (2003a) Report on the Second Interagency Workshop on Implementing a Human Rghts based Approach in the Context of UN Reform (Inter-Agency agreement as annex). UN (2003b) UN Common Country Assessment and United Nations Assistance Development Framework Guidance. UN (2003c) The Right of Everyone to Enjoy the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health. Report of Paul Hunt, Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights. 57 Session, General Assembly. New York: UN. UN (2005a) In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All. A/59/2005. UN (2005b) 2005 World Summit Outcome. General Assembly. A/60/L.1. UNDG (2003) UNDG Guidance Note: UN Country Team Engagement in PSRPs. UNDP Del Buono, V. and Rauch, J. (2003) Capacity Building in the Area of Child Justice: Report of the Final Evaluation Mission. UNDP / SDC. Filmer-Wison, E. and Anderson, M. (2005) Integrating Human Rights into Energy and Environment Programming: A Reference Paper. New York: UNDP. Minority Rights Group (2003) Discussion Paper on UNDP Policy Note on Minorities, October. Speth, James Gustave (1998) ‘Human Rights and Sustainable Development’. Memorandum from UNDP Administrator, UNDP (nd a) Guidance Note: Enhancing the Contribution of Parliaments to Human Rights. UNDP (nd b) UNDP and Indigenous Peoples: A Policy of Engagement. 65 UNDP (1998) Integrating Human Rights with Sustainable Human Development: A UNDP Policy Document. UNDP (2000) Human Development Report 2000: Human Rights and Human Development. New York: UNDP. UNDP (2002) Access to Justice for All and Justice Sector Reform. BDP Policy Note presented at UNDP Access to Justice Workshop, Oslo. UNDP (2003a) Human Rights-based Reviews of UNDP Programmes: Working Guidelines. UNDP (2003b) Poverty Reduction and Human Rights: A Practice Note. UNDP (2003c) Right to Information: Practical Guidance Note. UNDP (2003d) UNDP Policy Note on Land Rights: A discussion paper for comment UNDP (2004) Access to Justice: Practice Note. UNDP (2005) Human Rights in UNDP: Practice Note. UNIFEM UNIFEM (nd a) ‘Women’s Right to Land in Central Asia’. Programme document. UNIFEM (nd b) Women’s Land Rights in Central Asia. UNIFEM (2004) Pathway to Gender Equality. New York: UNIFEM. UNIFEM (2005) Results Based Management in UNIFEM: Essential Guide. New York: UNIFEM. Satterthwaite, Meg (nd) ‘Using Human Rights Treaties to Protect Rural Women’s Right to Land in Tajikistan’. UNIFEM. UNIFEM CIS (2005) Achievements and Challenges in Linking the Implemenation of the Beijing Platform for Action, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the MDGs. Prepared by United Nations Development Fund for Women for CIS (UNIFEM CIS) UNFPA Executive Director (2004) ‘Policy Note on Implementing a Human Rights-based Approach to Programming in UNFPA’. UNFPA (2003) ‘A Rights-Based Approach to Reproductive Health’, Outlook 20 (4): December. UNFPA (2004) Culture Matters: Working with Communities and Faith-based Organisations: Case Studies from Country Programmes. New York: UNFPA. UNICEF Moser, C. and Moser, A. (2003) Moving Ahead with Human Rights: Assessment of the Operationalization of the Human Rights-based Approach in UNICEF Programming. Raphael, Alison (2004) HRBAP Progress Review 2003: Implementation of Human Rights Approach to Programming in UNICEF Country Offices (1998-2003). Rios-Kohn, R. (2001) Peru Case Study: A Human Rights Approach. New York: UNICEF. Robert, P and Englehardt, J (2005) ‘Evaluation of UNICEF Strengthening HRBAP Project Phase 2: Inception Report’. Birmingham: PARC. Salazar-Volkmann, Christian (2004) Key Entry Points and Challenges for a Human Rights-based Approach to Programming for Children and Women in Viet Nam. UNICEF Vietnam. Theis, J. (2004) ‘Consolidation and Review of the Main Findings and Lessons Learned of the Case Studies on Operationalizing HRBAP in UNICEF’ 66 UNICEF (1998) Executive Directive: Guidelines for Human Rights-based Programming Approach. New York: UNICEF. USAID USAID, Office of Democracy and Governance (2002) Achievements in Building and Maintaining the Rule of Law, Occasional Papers Series, November. USAID (2005a) ‘Guide to Rule of Law Country Analysis: The Rule of Law Strategic Framework’. Draft. USAID (2005b) Trafficking in Persons: USAID’s Response. World Bank Dañino, Roberto (2004) ‘The Legal Aspects of the World Bank’s Work on Human Rights: Some Preliminary Thoughts’. Paper presented at ‘Human Rights and Development: Towards Mutual Reinforcement’ Conference co-sponsored by the Ethical Globalization Initiative and the Center for Human Rights, New York University School of Law, 1 March. Ingram, Joseph (2004) World Bank Statement at the High Level Seminar on the Right to Development. Kaufman, Daniel (2004) ‘Human Rights and Governance: The Empirical Challenge’. Paper prepared for a conference co-sponsored by the Ethical Globalization Initiative and the NYU Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, 1 March (revised December). Narayan, Deepa et al. (2000) Voices of the Poor: Can Anyone Hear Us? New York: Oxford University Press for the World Bank. Wolfensohn, James D. (2004) ‘Human Rights and Development: Towards Mutual Reinforcement’. Remarks at a Dialogue on Human Rights and Development Organized by the Ethical Globalization Initiative and New York University Law School, New York City, 1 March. World Bank (1998) Development and Human Rights: The Role of the World Bank. World Bank (2004a) Operational Policy 4.01 Environmental Assessment. World Bank (2004b) Operational Policy 4.12 Involuntary Resettlement. World Bank (2004c) World Bank Initiatives in Legal and Judicial Reform. World Bank (2005a) Empowering People by Transforming Institutions: Social Development in the World Bank Operations. January. World Bank (2005b) ‘Human Rights and the Policies and Activities of the IBRB’. Working Draft Matrix, Version April. World Bank (2005c) World Development Report 2006: Equity and Development. World Bank (2005d) Operational Policy 4.10 Indigenous Peoples. World Bank (2005e) Operational Policy 4.00 Piloting the Use of Borrower Systems to Address Environmental and Social Safeguard Issues in Bank-Supported Projects (March). 67 Annex 4: Mapping Existing Studies on Human Rights and Development and Identification of Good Practices Methodology The TORs specified that research would be based on desk reviews and interviews. Interviews with donor agencies were held during May-June 2005. An inception meeting was held in Paris on 18 April 2005 with the Task Team, and the first draft report was discussed with the Core Task Team in London on 4 July. The second draft report was discussed with the full Task Team in Paris on 5-6 September. It will be finalised ahead of a GOVNET meeting in October 2005. The methodology for this study has included a four-part process for collecting documentation. • First, relevant documentation was selected from ODI’s human rights and development resource library. These included documents from individual donor agencies as well as a small number of academic and multi-donor studies. • Secondly, this list of documents was distributed to the members of the Task Team, who were asked to provide further relevant documentation from their agencies, including policy, guidance and operational documents and studies, evaluations and other analyses of practical experiences. • Thirdly, during an informal consultation session, members of key UK-based NGOs working with rights-based approach were asked to provide any available documented accounts of their experiences. • Fourthly, an internet-based search was conducted to ensure that we had the most recent synthesis and evaluation documents. This included a broad- based Google search using key terms and more targeted searches using the websites of individual institutions, such as international human rights organisations (e.g. Chr. Michelsen Institute, Danish Institute for Human rights, etc.) and online development resources (e.g. Eldis, ID21, Development Gateway, etc.). Interviews provided some opportunities for triangulation, in particular to ascertain the extent to which policy documents were being implemented and which country experiences might warrant further research. They were conducted with HQ staff and thus could not validate country level programming experiences. Shortcomings of the mapping process The TORs required ‘a mapping of existing studies on HRBAs and integrating human rights into development work. Several studies exist that compile positions and policies on human rights in the development context. The study should not recreate these other documents, but rather analyse the common elements in these studies and, where necessary, identify any gaps in the existing research.’ In the course of the research, we have found that mapping and analysing existing general studies on donors’ positions and policies was not the most satisfactory way of proceeding. This was for a number of reasons: • Available studies are not always accurate. It is not always possible to distinguish amongst quotations from policy statements, interviews with agencies and analyses and commentaries made by the authors themselves. • A number of studies are a few years old, and do not reflect recent developments, in particular since the 2003 UN Common Understanding. • The methodology used in these studies was not always sound enough: reliance on phone interviews with a range of donors and desk reviews of 68  existing policy statements only give a partial picture. Studies’ findings were not always verified by donor agencies or partners. • They do not use identical analytical frameworks and are at times contradictory in their analysis of donor agencies or definition of key terms. • Because they are often multi-donor studies, they cannot go in-depth into the actual practices of donor agencies. • They lack an analysis of programming and implementation and are not based on independent evaluations of donor programmes. As a result, we have decided to use as the basis of the mapping exercise a small number of studies with a sound methodology and whose findings could be triangulated with other studies, the interviews and other documents sent by donors. We have given preference to recent in-depth reviews of single agencies or the UN system. We have also identified a few documented country case studies. However, not all agencies have undertaken such evaluations and assessments, which severely limits the empirical basis of the study. The original approach of the GOVNET Task Team included a process of ‘stocktaking’. This study was commissioned without such a stocktaking process. We would therefore recommend that more agencies invest in documented internal lesson-learning on human rights in order to inform their own policy development and practices. This would help constitute a body of shared knowledge across development actors. There is a vast body of NGO reviews of their experiences of rights-based approaches. It was beyond the scope of the TORs to examine them in details though such a review would provide useful information for donor agencies. We have also identified a number of academic papers, presentations, workshop reports, and other contributions to general thinking on human rights-based approaches and human rights in development, which have informed this review. Challenges of documenting good practices The TORs also requested ‘compiling and analysing donor experiences with a view to extracting best practices and results – with a particular although not exclusive focus on governance-related programming’. Given the desk-based nature of this study, we had to rely on information provided through interviews and documents. Very few agencies have undertaken independent evaluations of their human rights programming. As a result, few examples of ‘documented’ or ‘verified’ good practices have been identified. A few case studies were identified late in the research process and have been summarised in the annexes. In the main, however, our conclusion is that donors have not sufficiently invested in internal knowledge management on human rights to enable a short desk review to draw out a set of verified ‘good practices’. The scope of work in has meant that it was not possible to examine all possible sectors as envisaged in the TORs or requested at the inception review. Nor was it to research more deeply a couple of more promising examples. A comparative study of a limited number of sectors would lead to more satisfactory identification of good programming which could inform a DAC guidance document. As a result, the following words of caution need to accompany Section 3 of the report: 69  • Our intention was to identify illustrative good practices in the sectors of most interest to Task Team members, based on demonstrated use or impact. • However, there seem to be few sound evaluations or reviews on which to draw, either in the area of guidance/tools, traditional human rights projects or of HRBA to programming with demonstrated impacts. • Some examples provided here are very recent, so illustrate intentions or new approaches, rather than results. Given the desk-based nature of this work, project partners or beneficiaries were not consulted. • Given the lack of data availability, we have not attempted to quantify the proportion of donor programming directly on human rights or explicitly adopting a HRBA, nor given an estimate of ODA amounts spent on human rights. • Some relevant studies are not finalised or underway (e.g. DFID commissioned review of tools; UK INGO Inter-Agency Impact Evaluation; UNDP Asia-Pacific lesson-learning; HURIST, UNICEF and Sida evaluations). They could be used by the GOVNET at a later stage during 2005-6. • As a result, Section 3 describes activities which have not always been evaluated, in order to reflect the range of programming experiences rather than their impacts. • In addition, a number of case studies, based on interviews or available material, were prepared and presented as part of the annexes. Multi-donor studies Rights-Based Approach to Development: Key Principles and a Review of Recent Policies and Practices (El Obaid and Lamontagne, 2002) Review to inform internal CIDA discussions on RBA. Based on desk reviews and interviews. Prior to 2003 UN understanding so attempts to identify common elements and added value of RBA. Outdated for most agencies reviewed. No practical programming examples. Concludes that ‘Sweden is one of the most advanced countries in the adoption and implementation of RBA’. A Rights-Based Approach to Development: What the Policy Documents of the UN, Development Cooperation and NGO Agencies Say (Appleyard, 2002) Review based on an analysis of agency policy documents for OHCHR. Short summaries reviewed by aid agency staff. Covers bilaterals, UN and NGOs. Useful framework but too old (pre-2003) and does not cover actual donor experiences which leads to questionable findings regarding categorisation of agencies. Analysis based on review identifies 4 approaches: (i) democracy and good governance as a sector of aid policy and development leads to respect for human rights (e.g. World Bank and AusAid); (ii) human rights contribute but are not central to development + participation and accountability are useful at project level (e.g. CIDA and Japan); (iii) partial integration of human rights in the goal of development, with an emphasis on democracy and good governance (e.g. Sida); (iv) integration of all human rights into policy and programmes with the realisation of all human rights as the ultimate goal of development (e.g. DFID). Human Rights Approach for German Development Cooperation (Lingnau, 2003) Study by German Development Institute for German Ministry (BMZ). Background papers on different agencies commissioned (not reviewed as most are in German). Unclear distinction between rights-based approaches and a human rights approach. Makes recommendations to German government. Not checked by relevant agencies. 70 Human Rights and Development (Uvin, 2004) Book reviewing debates around development and human rights and donor approaches. Distinguishes between rhetorical incorporation, political conditionality, positive support and a rights-based approach. RBA: both human rights and development ‘become conceptually and operationally inseparable parts of the same process of social change’. It is ‘the only approach [which] contains the potential to provide the necessary changes in current development practice’. What is the ‘RBA’ all about: perspectives from international development agencies (Nyamu-Musembi and Cornwall, 2004) Academic reflection on RBA discourse, with review of selected agencies based on analysis of policy statements and a few interviews. Covers antecedents in anti- colonial struggles and right to development debates. Emphasis put on the location of aid agencies, and the value of RBA to deal with power relations and accountability of agencies themselves. Highlights diversity of meanings of RBA. Identifies 4 dimensions: HR as a set of normative principles; as a set of instruments; as a component to be integrated in programming; as the underlying justification for interventions aimed to strengthen institutions. ‘If “rights-based approaches” are to make the difference that they promise, however, there is an urgent need to meet more effectively the challenge of aligning human rights principles with procedures and practices – whether methodological, programmatic or evaluative – that can really embed them in the work that international development agencies do’ (2004:60). Single donor studies Moving Ahead with Human Rights: Assessment of the Operationalization of the Human Rights-Based Approach in UNICEF Programming, 2002 (Moser and Moser, 2003) Desk assessment using key word search (country notes, country programme recommendations, Country Office annul reports, regional analysis reports). Distinguishes between ‘unique’ and ‘essential’ aspects of HRBA. Finds ‘a proliferation of activities and programmes incorporating a HRPAP, indicating a remarkable effort by the organisation’. Key Entry Points and Challenges for a Human Rights-based Approach to Programming for Children and Women in Viet Nam: key entry points and challenges (Salazar-Volkman, 2003) One in a series of UNICEF commissioned case studies on HRBA. UNICEF studies did not adopt a shared framework making synthesis difficult. Independent evaluation of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation Human Rights Policy Guidelines and Rule of Law Guidance Documents (Piron and Court, 2003) Evaluation based on staff interviews, field work (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Pakistan, Peru, Rwanda), document review, gender ‘good story’, and comparison with other donors. Focus on use and impacts of guidance documents rather than programming. HRBAP Progress Review 2003: Implementation of Human Rights Approach to Programming in UNICEF Country Offices, 1998-2003 (Raphael, 2004) Detailed review based on optional questions in Annual Reports. Notes that the agency is on the cusp of a major breakthrough: 56% of COs reported using HRBAP to develop new Country Programmes or Situation Analyses; 62% reported significant national capacity building activities; 68% reported improved effectiveness as a result of efforts to ensure that partners and counterparts understand and appreciate the new approach. Study recommends renewed training, development of updated tools, best practices for operational use as well as creating an evaluation framework that 71 can be used year after year to measure UNICEF’s progress in HRBAP across all Country Offices. DFID Human Rights Review: A Review of How DFID has Integrated Human Rights into its Work (Piron and Watkins, 2004) Detailed review of DFID policy and programming activities, drawing on interviews with staff and review of documentation, including mid-term reviews. No consultation with partners or other external actors. Not an evaluation. Consolidation and Review of the Main Findings and Lessons Learned of the Case Studies on Operationalizing HRBAP in UNICEF (Theis, 2004) Very detailed review of UNICEF case studies. Human Rights-based Approach to CCA and UNDAF: Good Practices and Lessons Learned from the 2003 Roll-outs. (O’Neill, 2004) Review for OHCHR of application of HRBA to CCAs and UNDAFs, noting progress on past years. Recommends more efforts to use UN human rights system to inform programming. Major findings summarised in an annex to this report. DFID Social Exclusion Review (Beall and Piron, 2005) Review of DFID policy and programming activities, drawing on interviews with staff and review of documentation. No consultation with partners or other external actors. Not an evaluation. Included desk review of other agencies. Alliances Against Poverty: DFID’s Experience in Peru 2000-2005 (DFID, 2005) Detailed review of DFID Peru’s experiences. Good model on how to document and disseminate HRBA experiences. HURIST: Evaluation Mission Report (UNDP et al. 2005) Important document but received too late in research process. Evaluates one of the most important UN efforts to systematically integrate human rights. Thematic studies A Human Rights Perspective on the Millennium Development Goals (Alston, 2004) Comprehensive review of the relationship between human rights and the MDGs with practical recommendations to bring the two agendas closer together. Examination of Approaches by International Development Agencies to Minority Issues in development (Minority Rights Group, 2004) Concise review of donor experiences with minorities. The Right to Development: Study on Existing Bilateral and Multilateral Programmes and Policies for Development Partnership (Piron, 2004) Study for the UN Sub-Commission examining similarities and tensions between human rights and aid effectiveness principles, in the context of better understanding development partnerships and the right to development. Frequently asked questions on HRBAs (OHCHR, forthcoming 2005) Comprehensive review of key questions and answers relating to HRBAs. Review of guidance documents, human rights analysis and other tools (Filmer- Wilson, 2005) Study commissioned by DFID but not shared in full with consultant. 72 Annex 5: The U.N. ‘Common Understanding’ on a Human Rights-Based Approach to Development Cooperation U.N. Inter-agency workshop, Stamford, USA, May 2003 Introduction The United Nations is founded on the principles of peace, justice, freedom and human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes human rights as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace. The unanimously adopted Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action states that democracy, development, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. In the UN Programme for Reform that was launched in 1997, the Secretary-General called on all entities of the UN system to mainstream human rights into their various activities and programmes within the framework of their respective mandates. Since then a number of UN agencies have adopted a human rights-based approach to their development cooperation and have gained experiences in its operationalization. But each agency has tended to have its own interpretation of approach and how it should be operationalized. However, UN interagency collaboration at global and regional levels, and especially at the country level in relation to the CCA and UNDAF processes, requires a common understanding of this approach and its implications for development programming. What follows is an attempt to arrive at such an understanding on the basis of those aspects of the human rights-based approach that are common to the policy and practice of the UN bodies that participated in the Interagency Workshop on a Human Rights-based Approach in the context of UN reform 3-5 May, 2003. This Statement of Common Understanding specifically refers to a human rights- based approach to the development cooperation and development programming by UN agencies. Common Understanding 1. All programmes of development cooperation, policies and technical assistance should further the realisation of human rights as laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments. 2. Human rights standards contained in, and principles derived from, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments guide all development cooperation and programming in all sectors and in all phases of the programming process. 3. Development cooperation contributes to the development of the capacities of ‘duty-bearers’ to meet their obligations and/or of ‘rights-holders’ to claim their rights. 73 1. All programmes of development cooperation, policies and technical assistance should further the realisation of human rights as laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments. A set of programme activities that only incidentally contributes to the realization of human rights does not necessarily constitute a human rights-based approach to programming. In a human rights-based approach to programming and development cooperation, the aim of all activities is to contribute directly to the realization of one or several human rights. 2. Human rights standards contained in, and principles derived from, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments guide all development cooperation and programming in all sectors and in all phases of the programming process. Human Rights principles guide programming in all sectors, such as: health, education, governance, nutrition, water and sanitation, HIV/AIDS, employment and labour relations and social and economic security. This includes all development cooperation directed towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and the Millennium Declaration. Consequently, human rights standards and principles guide both the Common Country Assessment and the UN Development Assistance Framework. Human rights principles guide all programming in all phases of the programming process, including assessment and analysis, programme planning and design (including setting of goals, objectives and strategies); implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Among these human rights principles are: universality and inalienability; indivisibility; interdependence and inter-relatedness; non-discrimination and equality; participation and inclusion; accountability and the rule of law. These principles are explained below. • Universality and inalienability: Human rights are universal and inalienable. All people everywhere in the world are entitled to them. The human person in whom they inhere cannot voluntarily give them up. Nor can others take them away from him or her. As stated in Article 1 of the UDHR, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. • Indivisibility: Human rights are indivisible. Whether of a civil, cultural, economic, political or social nature, they are all inherent to the dignity of every human person. Consequently, they all have equal status as rights, and cannot be ranked, a priori, in a hierarchical order. • Interdependence and Inter-relatedness. The realization of one right often depends, wholly or in part, upon the realization of others. For instance, realization of the right to health may depend, in certain circumstances, on realization of the right to education or of the right to information. • Equality and Non-discrimination: All individuals are equal as human beings and by virtue of the inherent dignity of each human person. All human beings are entitled to their human rights without discrimination of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, ethnicity, age, language, religion, political or other opinion, 74  national or social origin, disability, property, birth or other status as explained by the human rights treaty bodies. • Participation and Inclusion: Every person and all peoples are entitled to active, free and meaningful participation in, contribution to, and enjoyment of civil, economic, social, cultural and political development in which human rights and fundamental freedoms can be realized. • Accountability and Rule of Law: States and other duty-bearers are answerable for the observance of human rights. In this regard, they have to comply with the legal norms and standards enshrined in human rights instruments. Where they fail to do so, aggrieved rights-holders are entitled to institute proceedings for appropriate redress before a competent court or other adjudicator in accordance with the rules and procedures provided by law. 3. Programmes of development cooperation contribute to the development of the capacities of duty-bearers to meet their obligations and of ‘rights-holders’ to claim their rights. In a HRBA human rights determine the relationship between individuals and groups with valid claims (rights-holders) and State and non-State actors with correlative obligations (duty- bearers). It identifies rights-holders (and their entitlements) and corresponding duty-bearers (and their obligations) and works towards strengthening the capacities of rights-holders to make their claims, and of duty-bearers to meet their obligations. Implications of a Human Rights-based Approach to Development Programming of UN Agencies Experience has shown that the use of a human rights-based approach requires the use of good programming practices. However, the application of “good programming practices” does not by itself constitute a human rights-based approach, and requires additional elements. The following elements are necessary, specific, and unique to a human rights-based approach: a) Assessment and analysis in order to identify the human rights claims of rights-holders and the corresponding human rights obligations of duty-bearers as well as the immediate, underlying, and structural causes of the non- realization of rights. b) Programmes assess the capacity of rights-holders to claim their rights, and of duty-bearers to fulfill their obligations. They then develop strategies to build these capacities. c) Programmes monitor and evaluate both outcomes and processes guided by human rights standards and principles. d) Programming is informed by the recommendations of international human rights bodies and mechanisms. Other elements of good programming practices that are also essential under a HRBA, include: 1. People are recognized as key actors in their own development, rather than passive recipients of commodities and services. 75 2. Participation is both a means and a goal. 3. Strategies are empowering, not disempowering. 4. Both outcomes and processes are monitored and evaluated. 5. Analysis includes all stakeholders. 6. Programmes focus on marginalized, disadvantaged, and excluded groups. 7. The development process is locally owned. 8. Programmes aim to reduce disparity. 9. Both top-down and bottom-up approaches are used in synergy. 10. Situation analysis is used to identity immediate, underlying, and basic causes of development problems. 11. Measurable goals and targets are important in programming. 12. Strategic partnerships are developed and sustained. 13. Programmes support accountability to all stakeholders. 76 Annex 6: Background to GOVNET’s work on human rights2 Human rights and human rights-based approaches have only recently started to play a more prominent role in the GOVNET agenda. They were addressed by its predecessor, the Ad Hoc Working Group on Participatory Democracy and Good Governance, but not given a prominent role in DAC statements. This annex summarises key developments since 1993. The DAC Orientations on Participatory Development and Good Governance, adopted at a High-Level Meeting in 1993, stressed the importance of good governance, public management, democratic accountability and the protection of human rights. They were published in 1995 as the DAC Guidelines on Participatory Development and Good Governance. They include a long chapter on human rights which was limited to civil and political rights. The 1993 High-Level Meeting also approved the establishment of an ad hoc working group which exchanged donor experiences. Human rights were included in its agenda and a workshop was organised in 1996. The 1997 Final Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Participatory Development and Good Governance indicates the consensus reached at this stage. Key elements are as follows: (i) Conclusion 2: Base Partnerships on a Common Understanding of Development - Governance Linkages. ‘Development cooperation stresses positive measures for the promotion of PD/GG. The withholding of assistance should be reserved for cases where persistent violations of men, women and children's basic rights are not being addressed by the government and no adequate basis of shared values and interests exists to permit a real partnership.' (ii) Conclusion 8: Operate in a Long-term Strategic Framework. ‘A democratic culture and pervasive respect for human rights require time before they become firmly established’. (iii) Action-oriented Outcomes 2: ‘A learning network on human rights, connecting both aid agencies and other interested institutions and practitioners, will be incorporated’ in the informal PD/GG network. (iv) The role of donors in democratisation processes: ‘The International Conventions on Human Rights and similar international commitments and the DAC Orientations provide a foundation for development cooperation in the PD/GG area’. (v) Summary of donors approaches to human rights and development cooperation (see box on next page): (vi) Main elements of in-country coordination: foundations of discussion should be based on an in-country assessment of PD/GG issues, including human rights. (vii) Linkages to other development objectives: ‘A main requirement for poverty reduction is the promotion of popular participation in the development process and support for the development of a society based on the rule of law, respect for human rights and good governance as the pre-requisites to stability and economic, social and political progress’. (viii) Part 2 of the Final Report, Chapter 3 on Human Rights in Development Cooperation, summarises the findings of the CIDA-sponsored workshop, highlights the need for more strategic work, and also covers the rights of women, minorities, indigenous peoples, child labour and HIV/AIDS issues. Human rights and development cooperation, extract from 1997 Report (Part 1) 2 This annex incorporates findings of research by Sebastian Bartsch, OECD-DAC. 77 12. The role for development cooperation in promoting respect for human rights is widely accepted and has led to increased policy and programming activities. 13. Respect for human rights is seen as an objective in its own right but also as a critical factor for the longer-term sustainability of development activities. Political suppression undermines prospects for sustainable development. Civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights are interlinked and mutually reinforcing and are to be equally enjoyed by men and women. There is also a close relationship between the capacity to exercise civil and political rights and levels of education, health and basic living conditions. 14. Aid agencies can help promote respect for human rights through: - policy dialogue; - assistance for critical institutions such as the judicial system; - support for civil society groups involved in human rights and for a wide range of relevant activities from legal advocacy to trade unions or minorities’ rights; - support for international networks involved in documentation and information exchange, human rights education, etc. 15. A key instrument for donor agencies is "policy dialogue" which is generally conducted with government authorities and other leaders in society. - The basis of a dialogue on human rights is the commitment common to both donor and partner countries to UN instruments on human rights. - The dialogue is made more credible and cogent by the donor country having developed an explicit policy to guide its development cooperation in this field. 16. The process of working out such a policy can be used to build aid agency capacity and effectiveness, by such steps and outcomes as: - conducting an inventory of the agency’s ongoing activities related to human rights and establishing a database widely available to the staff; - providing opportunities for analysis (including gender analysis) and discussion within the aid agency on ways to better integrate human rights concerns in all activities and ways of providing direct support for human rights; - identifying entry points in development projects/programmes for promoting human rights; - identifying areas of comparative advantage or where strengthening or cooperation with others are required; and - determining training needs of aid agency staff. 17. A responsive approach is often used in work for the promotion of human rights. This approach, which is often small-scale, has merit during initial phases before an aid agency acquires sufficient operational experience. But support for human rights should evolve towards strategic approaches enabling opportunities to be exploited more systematically within a framework of longer term objectives. 18. Support for the networking of groups and associations working to promote human rights has special value for strengthening local capacity and effectiveness. It also provides a measure of protection, linked to international recognition, to human rights activists. 19. As mentioned previously, the Ad Hoc Group supports the DAC Expert Group on Aid Evaluation in recommending that the DAC consider establishing a “learning network” on human rights for the exchange of information and experience among aid agencies, research institutes and other partners, and practitioners. 78 The 1997 report does not seem to have been followed by significant policy developments or further actions. For example, the DCD/DAC Programme of Work and Budget for 2001-2002 (drafted in 2000) had included under item 6 as a major expected output and event a ‘Workshop on best practices and lessons learned on fostering democratic governance and human rights’ [DCD/DAC(2000)8/REV3]. There is no indication that this workshop ever materialised. With regards to high level OECD wide activities and statements, a good indicator of the limited relevance of human rights within the OECD's governance agenda was a Progress Report on an OECD Governance Outreach Initiative (2000), with a foreword by the OECD Secretary-General and a number of annexes. Human rights are not mentioned in the ‘Progress Report and Next Steps’ nor in the ‘Principal Links to OECD Governance Best Practices and Policy Lessons’. The OECD ‘Draft Statement on Governance Priorities for the 21st Century’ states that governance, when effective, serves to provide, inter alia, ‘a framework that allows social investments in human capital to achieve equity, protections against exclusion and the pursuit of human rights and responsibilities’. In the 36 pages annex on Key Elements of OECD's Work on Governance Issues’ (building on the 1997 report of the ad hoc working group) human rights are mentioned in: (i) a list of many elements constituting participatory development; (ii) a list of many elements constituting good governance; (iii) quotations from the 1997 report (conclusions 2 and 8). The 2001 DAC Poverty Reduction Guidelines do make a number of references to human rights, including rights-based approaches. The DAC High-Level Meeting endorsing the guidelines restated agencies ‘determination to promote qualitative factors of development – including effective, democratic and accountable governance, the protection of human rights, and respect for the rule of law – in supporting partner country efforts to build stable, safe, participatory and just societies’ (DAC, 2001: 10). The guidelines recognise that poverty is multi- dimensional, and include human rights as part of political capabilities. It states that: ‘Deprivation of basic political freedoms or human rights is a major aspect of poverty’. (ibid: 38). Human rights are related to empowerment, social exclusion, pro-poor governance and democratisation. ‘Rights-based approaches to poverty reduction are increasingly in focus, linking empowerment of poor women and men and the rights of children to the framework of norms, standards and principles of the international agreements on human rights’ (ibid: 47). Participation, empowerment and gender equality are emphasised as fundamental principles governing poverty reduction partnerships (ibid: 56). When governments are not committed to poverty reduction, serious concerns about governance, human rights and aid effectiveness will impact on aid modalities (ibid:62). Human rights are also related to efforts to improve policy coherence, including labour standards. The guidelines recognise that ‘when deficient governance, a lack of transparency and corruption in partner countries are addressed, difficulties with political sensitivities and with commercial or other foreign policy considerations can lead to a certain lack of coherence’ (DAC, 2001: 101). Although the DAC’s governance work and its poverty guidelines created the basis for more work on human rights, poverty reduction and aid effectiveness, it is only in 2003 that human rights became more central to the DAC’s subsidiary bodies. In the work of the two bodies preceding the GOVNET – the DAC's Informal Network on Participatory Development and Good Governance (PD/GG) and the DAC's Institutional and Capacity Development Network (I/CD) – human rights was not an issue. For example, in the Synthesis Report of the 1999 Annual PD/GG Meeting held in April 1999 [DCD/DAC(99)21], human rights were only mentioned 79 marginally in an annex of ‘possible work options in relation to topics of interest to the DAC PD/GG Network’ in connection with education in democratic governance, based on UNDP's interest to contribute/share training manuals and modules on capacity- building and human rights. Similarly, in early 2000, in a review of the architecture and mandates of all DAC Subsidiary Bodies [DCD/DIR(2000)3] which, inter alia, led to the merger of the two afore-mentioned networks in 2001, forming the GOVNET, human rights only appeared in connection with the work of the Working Party on Gender Equality (there was for instance a Joint Workshop with the UN Inter Agency Committee on Women and Gender Equality in Rome in 1998 on ‘Gender Equality and a Rights-based Approach to Development’), but not in connection with either the PD/GG or I/CD work. Interestingly, in summer 2000, when the Secretariat held consultations with both PD/GG and I/CD networks [DCD/DIR(2000)11], democratisation and human rights were then among the 5-6 topics that attracted ‘strongest support’ in view of a future work programme. However, this support notwithstanding, human rights did not make it onto the new network's (GOVNET's) list of major work programme components in 2001. The first GOVNET Meeting in May 2001 summarised human rights under ‘Other Issues’, stating that ‘democratisation and human rights are possible topics on the work programme, subject to development of a proposal that members feel would add value to them and finding lead members’ [DCD/DAC/GOVNET/M(2001)1]. Several members highlighted the importance of human rights and HRBA to their work and that the exchange of information on these issues was key to making progress in their work. Individual members also flagged their interest in addressing political process issues in poor performing countries at a later stage of the GOVNET's work also under the human rights and democratisation theme. The second and third GOVNET Meetings (Feb and Oct 2002 respectively) did not mention human rights at all. The fourth GOVNET Meeting in 2003 brought a first breakthrough for the human rights issue. Kirsten Mlacak from CIDA ‘noted the interest to work through the GOVNET on rights-based approaches. There was a strong interest of a number of Members to pursue this work and a task team would be set up to carry this work forward under the leadership of Canada. The GOVNET agreed to establish a virtual Task Team on Human Rights and Development to provide a policy forum for exchanging expertise, sharing lessons learned, to identify and disseminate good practice, and developing policy and analytical tools. At the next meeting of the GOVNET, the informal Task Team would present the results of a stocktaking of work among development agencies on human rights and development and rights-based approaches to development and possible future activities of the team’ (quote from the Summary Record [DCD/DAC/GOVNET/M(2003)1]). The fifth GOVNET Meeting in March 2004 then confirmed this perspective by integrating human rights as one of the four priority areas into the GOVNET's Programme of Work 2005-2006. Presentations were made by the UK, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, UNOHCHR and UNDP. For the first time, the Summary Record noted that the GOVNET's work on human rights ‘could also lead to a policy recommendation’ [DCD/DAC/GOVNET/M(2004)1]. At the sixth Meeting in January 2005 the GOVNET then endorsed the TORs which are the basis for the Task Team's current work and this study. 80 Annex 7: Case studies 7.1: Agencies 7.1.1: Sida case study Introduction This annex presents a short case study of a bilateral agency that has adopted a human rights-based approach to development for a number of years. It is based on a one-day visit to Sida HQ in Stockholm and a light review of documents. Policy development The Swedish Government has invested considerably, over a number of years, in human rights policy development. In 1997, Sida issued an action programme called ‘Justice and Peace: Sida’s Programme for Peace, Democracy and Human Rights’. Three key government communications provided Sida’s initial policy framework: • Human Rights in Swedish Foreign Policy (1997, revised in 2003). • Democracy and Human Rights in Sweden’s Development Cooperation (1997). • The Rights of the Child as a Perspective in Development Cooperation (2001). Rationales for Sida’s democracy and human rights-based approach Sida closely links human rights and a democratic culture and institutions. It considers that democracy is essential in upholding human rights, such as through free and fair elections, party systems, free media, rule of law, participation, tolerance and dialogue. For Sida, a democracy and human rights approach contributes in the following way to development cooperation: - A shared pool of values based on the international conventions on human rights. - A clear division of responsibility based in principle on the state’s obligations and the individual’s human rights. - A process in which participation is a fundamental principle. - A holistic view of the individual person’s problem and potential, as well as a society’s power relationships and power structures, which form the framework within which individuals act, alone or in a group. - An analytical tool, which facilitates and contributes to the identification of target groups, problem areas, power relations and structures, and thereby leads to a more efficient collaboration with cooperation partners and countries. - A measuring instrument and indicator that facilitates a clearer scrutiny of which gains have been made. Source: Sida and MFA (2001); Frederiksen (2003). In 2002, Sweden adopted a National Human Rights Action Plan, demonstrating its domestic commitment to human rights. In 2003, a new Swedish Policy for Global Development was adopted by Parliament ‘Shared Responsibility’ (government bill 2002/03: 122) (Government of Sweden, 2002). It affects all Swedish overseas policy and requires coherence across trade, development, migration, etc., and requires annual reporting back to Parliament on progress. It includes the requirement that a ‘rights perspective’, defined as including not only human rights and the rights of the child but also democracy and gender equality, be adopted across Swedish activities. It took a number of years to develop this new official policy and Sida was very much active in the process, which was led 81 by a Parliamentary Commission. Human rights NGOs also pushed for human rights to be part of the policy. Sida’s current steering policy and methods documents are comprised of the 2002 ‘Perspectives on Poverty’ and ‘Sida at Work’ (revised 2003) (Sida, 2002, 2003b). The new Global Policy is seen as creating a higher degree of awareness on human rights and democracy within Sida. New, shorter, policy documents as well as new guidance are being developed to complement them, such as a position paper on PRS or a guide for country-level analysis for poverty reduction. These need to incorporate a ‘rights perspective’. They will also serve to update the wide range of existing policy documents which Sida has already issued on children’s rights, human rights in the health and education sector, etc. These documents are being developed by a central team, with the Democratic Governance Division represented, and are being prepared through a participatory process involving consultation with field offices. Goal, perspectives and central components of Sweden’s development cooperation Global policy Sweden’s policy for global development is to contribute to equitable and sustainable development. The objective of Swedish development cooperation is to contribute to an environment supportive of poor people’s own efforts to improve their quality of life. It must be based on two perspectives: the perspectives of the poor and the rights perspective. The rights perspective is based on the global values expressed in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and subsequent conventions. Key principles are: equality in dignity and rights, participation, openness and transparency, and accountability. Democracy, human rights, gender equality, children’s rights and respect for international humanitarian law are part of the rights perspective. In addition, the global policy identifies 8 global components: democracy and good governance; respect for human rights; equality between women and men; environment; economic growth; social development; conflict management; and global public goods. Minimum requirements A working paper by Sida’s new Policy and Methodology Department has identified the minimum requirements to be met by the assessment memo submitted to Sida’s Project Committee, used to conclude the preparation phase of an intervention. They include that: • The basic perspectives, including the rights perspective, be applied. • The poverty analysis has a gender perspective. • The programme/project Sida is considering will not have negative effects on any of the areas covered by the 8 central component elements (including human rights and gender). Source: Department for Policy and Methodology (2005a, b). Relationship to Ministry of Foreign Affairs The close relationship between Sida and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been important in the development and implementation of Sida’s human rights and democracy approach. Sida is an independent governmental agency which receives its letter of appropriation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but it operates with a great deal of autonomy. On human rights, it works very closely with the Ministry, in particular the unit responsible for global development, which provides guidance and annual appropriations. The Ministry’s Division for International Law and Human Rights is responsible for the international human rights framework. The Ministry also has a duty to mainstream human rights within all its divisions, however, and it has also established a unit with its Division on Global Development to deal exclusively with issues relating to a rights-based approach, democracy, the perspective of poor people and ensuring coherence between these areas. When the human rights policies were first adopted, a working group of programme officers was established between the Ministry and Sida, and a consultation group of directors to ensure senior 82 management commitment. It was decided not to develop new procedures but, in the first instance, to use existing ones and have pilots. For example, the development of guidelines for the preparation of country strategies was piloted in Zimbabwe in 1998. Collaboration is ongoing. There is, for example, a Sida Programme Officer in Sweden’s Geneva Mission responsible for support to human rights organisations (e.g. Swedish aid to OHCHR and also to human rights NGOs). Sida is currently going through a process of decentralisation to Swedish embassies. This requires greater collaboration between diplomatic and aid staff. The Kenya programme offers an illustration of positive experiences (see Annex 7.2.1). Institutional capacity Operational responsibility for Sida’s democracy and human rights approach is located in the Democracy and Social Development Department, Democratic Governance Division (DESA), which undertakes work on democracy/power relations, human rights and children. This constitutes a relatively large body of HQ staff (about 25 persons). Their role is to assist the rest of the agency in implementing a HRBA through in-house training and the development of lessons learned, methods and tools. Responsibility for consistently implementing a rights-perspective, however, rests with the whole agency. The Director General, Management Board and Policy and Methods Department are important stakeholders. Sida staff who attend DESA’s courses form part of the ‘democracy, human rights and child rights network’ and can act as advocates for the approach in their own divisions and programmes. The Division on Democratic Governance is also responsible for providing advice to country programmes. While this programming responsibility has limited the time available for policy and tools development, it also creates opportunities to contribute directly to country programmes and to learn lessons. As responsibility moves further to embassies and Country Offices, this link between HQ and field offices is becoming crucial. Institutional capacity was also strengthened by the appointment of three regional democracy and human rights advisors (in Bangkok, Nairobi and Harare) able to provide advice to country programmes. They offer training and can review programme documents and advise on new programmes, but their services are ‘on demand’. Capacity at embassy/country level is said to vary considerably. Very short trainings are provided in a systematic fashion (e.g. Sida induction and when staff move to the field). Trainings can also be organised on demand (e.g. Harare training for local staff). By comparison with other bilateral agencies, which often provide no human rights training and only have one, or half of one, staff member responsible for human rights, Sida’s combination of a strong policy framework and institutional capacity demonstrates a serious commitment to a democracy and human rights- based approach. Tools For historical reasons, only environmental and conflict issues are mandatory aspects of Sida’s operating rules. In order to assist in a more systematic approach, Sida developed a ‘guide for country analysis from a democratic governance and human rights perspective’, published in 2001 (Sida, 2001a). It is a questionnaire meant to assist in carrying out a country analysis, with questions covering: human rights (human rights conventions, rule of law, personal security and integrity, family life, non-discrimination, standard of living, and the right to education), democratisation, participation, and good governance. Overall, it is not clear what impact this guide for country analysis has had on Sida country strategies. It is not mandatory: the status of the questionnaire is as ‘a supplement to the guide on democratic governance which 83 in its turn is appended to the guidelines for the Country Strategy Process’. The direct involvement of HQ staff in strategy development is considered to have been more effective, though the guide is seen as a useful mainstreaming tool. More recently, Sida has been investing in ‘power analyses’, which it also considers to be a way of putting its democracy and human rights approach into practice. GOVNET is currently commissioning a study on this and related tools. Zimbabwe piloting of a country guide The democratic governance and human rights guide was piloted in Zimbabwe starting in 1998. It was a process which involved the Ministry and Sida staff, mostly at HQ level, though there was a mission to the country. The process was felt to lead to a richer and longer country analysis, with a better understanding of actors and processes. However, this initial effort was found not to have influenced the country strategy to a significant degree; for the first time, though, it touched upon political dialogue issues. Political events (constitution, land and elections) led to the expiration of the cooperation agreement between Sweden and Zimbabwe without renewal. In that context, the country analysis was considered useful: it had identified issues for political dialogue and meant that Sida was better informed Source: Johnston et al. (2000). Mainstreaming Sida has also invested in developing policies and tools to mainstream human rights, democracy and child rights in other sectors, such as health or education. Below is a summary of achievements with regards to children’s rights, and an update on its gender policy. The 2001 government communication on the rights of the child in Sweden’s international development cooperation (Government of Sweden, 2001) comprised a 10-point programme: put children first; listen to children; invest in the future; exclude no one; education for all; equal opportunities for girls and boys; health for all; protect children in war; combat HIV/AIDS; and stop exploiting children. It also highlighted four strategic areas: right to health and medical care; social reforms; education for all; and contributions for disadvantaged children. In 2003, Sida reported back to government on how it had implemented the 10-point programme of the children’s rights government communication. This report shows how Sida has been able to mainstream a child rights perspective. • Sida’s policy documents have increasingly emphasised children’s rights. In 1999, a position paper ‘The Rights of the Child in Swedish Development Cooperation’ was issued to serve as guidelines (Sida, 2003c). The 2002 ‘Perspectives on Poverty’ give attention to children and adolescents in vulnerable positions (Sida, 2002). • Guidance documents also reflect children’s rights. The updating of ‘Sida at work’ was also important: whereas children were not mentioned in the 1997 version, the updated version facilitated the mainstreaming of children’s rights by referencing the position paper (Sida, 200b). • A child rights perspective is becoming more visible in country strategies, such as in the regional South America strategy and Zambia country strategy. The 2001 guidelines for country strategy, which require paying attention to children’s rights, were seen as a contributor to this process. • Sida’s cooperation with the UN system pays particular attention to children’s rights. Support to WHO is based on a human rights perspective paying particular 84  attention to women and children, for example in the areas of maternal mortality and the right to sexual and reproductive health. Its support to the ILO includes a project on ‘Understanding Children’s Work and its Impact’. • The review also documents Sida’s policy and programmatic contribution to the four strategic areas: these integrate well the principles of the best interest of the child, gender and non-discrimination, but participation was more difficult to achieve. • Sida exerts international influence on children’s rights by working with the UN, EU and other bilaterals. • UNICEF is Sida’s largest channel, with responsibility for 40 programmes in partner countries. Swedish NGOs also receive Sida funding and work with local organisations, in particular Swedish Save the Children. • The review showed the difficulty of quantifying resources allocated to mainstreaming children’s rights beyond support to UNICEF and Save the Children. • This effort had been led by the equivalent of one full-time post in the Democratic Governance Division with responsibility for training, developing material and acting as advisers, and a network of Sida programme officers who have received basic training in children’s rights. Historically, Sida staff responsible for gender have not been located within DESA, and Sida’s gender work has not been institutionally directly related to its democracy, human rights and child rights policy initiatives, though there were strong synergies. Sida’s draft 2005 gender equality policy (Sida, 2005) replaces its 1997 action programme. It is based on a 2002 evaluation and subsequent consultations, which recommended that gender equality be present with more effective strategies and clearer accountability within Sida. It states that ‘Sida should always use the universal human rights framework, in particular CEDAW, as the principle guideline and standard of work’. In Sweden’s 2003 Policy for Global Development, the rights perspective is defined as including women’s rights and equal opportunities for women and men. Gender is also one of the eight central component elements. Strengthening rights for women, men, girls and boys is the first strategic area of the new gender equality policy (the second addresses power structures and relations). This first strategic area includes sexual and reproductive rights; understanding men’s roles; securing women’s and children’s rights to physical integrity; strengthening institutional frameworks; and paying attention to gender in conflict management and efforts to promote structural stability. Dialogue Sida makes it clear that its partnership with the countries, organisations and people it supports ‘is based on the human rights conventions that both parties have ratified, which further strengthens the rationale for promoting democratic governance’. Sida has experiences of a range of political dialogues on human rights as well as the application of human rights conditionality in some countries. The Government of Sweden has, for example, pulled out of Zimbabwe (its current programme only operates through NGOs on democracy, health and education) and is part of dialogue initiatives in Vietnam and Laos. Global initiatives Sweden hosted an international conference on human rights in 2000 (see ‘Working Together’ publications such as Frankovits and Earle, 2000). Sida has been a strong supporter of mainstreaming human rights across the UN system (e.g. OHCHR, HURIST, Action 2, WHO, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF). It also provides funding to international NGOs. 85 Evaluation Democracy and human rights projects and programmes are difficult to evaluate given issues of measurements (e.g. what are the right indicators) and attribution (e.g. what caused change, can it be attributed to a donor project). Sida has in the past commissioned studies regarding the evaluability of democracy and human rights projects for logframe-related impact evaluations and a more general reflection on measuring democratic governance and human rights results (Forss, 2002). Sida is planning to start four different evaluations during 2005, each using a different a methodology: • Traditional review of relevance and outcomes (of NGO interventions). • Formative evaluation of the mainstreaming programme in Kenya, which will follow the implementation of the programme during 2005-8. • Evaluation of the perceptions of the relevance, effectiveness and impact of human rights dialogue. • Programme theory evaluation approach examining the ideas and assumptions behind democracy projects. Challenges Sida has a very strong set of policy commitments. The challenge, as with all other donor agencies, has been to translate policy into a practice. Agencies are only now entering a period of more systematic implementation. Constraints have included: • Process of decentralisation means that the centre has less influence. Staff in field offices are overcommitted and may not know the policy. • Training on human rights, democracy and the rights of the child is not compulsory. However, there have been significant opportunities for training over the years. • There is pressure for donors to harmonise their aid at a country level. Human rights may lose out as a result of this process if donor’s country-level offices are not aware of their agencies’ policies. Some like-minded donors have not always been as strong as anticipated in the field. There may be the potential for greater exchanges at field and headquarters level, including through alliances of concerned donors. Achievements Given that Sida’s democracy and human rights-based approach dates from 1997, and builds on a history of ‘solidarity’-minded development assistance, it is possible to identify a number of enabling factors/achievements over the period. These include: • Context: Favourable domestic political environment to contributing to human rights overseas. • Overcoming resistance: At first, there was resistance as a result of ‘mainstreaming fatigue’. However, staff now ask for help and provide examples of what they have tried on the ground. There is a feeling that a democracy and human rights analysis improves Sida’s work. • New global policy: Building on earlier policy efforts which included human rights, the new policy is better known by staff and includes a rights perspective. Sida staff invested energy in influencing this global policy. • An implementation approach based on human rights and democracy principles, rather than international human rights instruments, is seen to work better because they provide an entry point for discussion. This was the lesson of Sida’s synthesis work on democratic governance (‘Digging Deeper’) which is being integrated into Sida’s human rights work. Sida’s four principles are: equality in dignity and rights; participation; openness and transparency; and accountability. These principles are, however, rooted in the international human rights framework, which remains at the core of Sida’s work. Source: Field visit and review of Sida documents. 86 Annex 7.1.2: UNICEF case study Introduction UNICEF is the UN agency with the longest experience of a HRBA. With external funding, it has invested considerably in documenting its experiences, which provides a solid basis for analysis and synthesis for DAC purposes. This annex attempts to identify some elements of UNICEF’s implementation of a HRBA. It draws on a telephone interview and a partial review of the considerable UNICEF documentation. Context The adoption of UNICEF’s Human Rights-based Approach to Programming (HRBAP) is to be understood in the context of UNICEF’s role in contributing to the drafting and adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1989, which provides a clear framework, as well as its special relationship to the Committee on the Rights of the Child and its interpretations of the CRC. During the 1990s, UNICEF moved away from advocating for CRC ratification and started using it as a framework for programme design and implementation. This has made UNICEF particularly receptive to the concept of HRBAP. CEDAW has also played a role, albeit to a lesser degree. In addition, the UN human rights mainstreaming process, started in 1997 with the support of the UN Secretary General, created an overall supportive environment. Content UNICEF’s HRBAP is thus clearly based on international human rights instruments (CRC and CEDAW), combining a focus on standards and principles (such as the four CRC principles). Programming was based on the ‘Triple-A’ model of assessment, analysis and action. This gives attention to analysing immediate and structural problems, roles and obligations, and resources. It also encourages drawing on the CRC monitoring and reporting procedures. Key steps and achievements In 1998, a HRBAP was declared to be an institutional priority and guidelines were provided by the Executive Director (Ex-Dir 04/98) (UNICEF, 1998). Since then, the organisation has invested considerable effort in defining what a HRBAP means in practice so that the policy can be implemented, in particular through country programmes. Key elements of the implementation have included: • Specific instructions accompanied the Executive Directive giving responsibilities for dissemination and implementation to heads of offices, regional directors and division directors. • HRBAP was not made a separate thematic area, but every staff member and Country Office has been made responsible for implementation. • UNICEF’s Programme Policies and Procedures Manual (PPPM) is regularly updated. The first UNICEF Programme Policies and Procedures Manual was issued in January 2000, reflecting UNICEF’s organisational transition to an approach to programming for children and women based explicitly on human rights principles. The PPPM provides up-to-date guidance on UNICEF Programme Operations for use by Country and Regional Offices and selectively with external partners and counterparts. In 2004, the third update of the PPPM sharpened guidance on the HRBAP to reflect the consensus, including among UN Agencies, obtained during recent the global consultation, and provided new guidance including on gender mainstreaming. 87  • Training materials have been developed by UNICEF Headquarters and by some regional offices. There are two levels of training (introductory and advanced) as well as a programming course which includes a module on HRBAP. • A book suggesting a series of steps for HRBAP implementation was published in 2003. • The HRBAP was first adopted in Africa and Latin America, though applied in different ways, which has inspired the rest of the organisation. The five-year programming cycle means that not all countries programmes moved to a HRBAP immediately in 1998. The latest progress review suggests that some regions are still not fully on board. • UNICEF’s Medium-Term Strategic Plan 2002-2005 establishes organisational priorities and defines its objectives and indicators. It combines a reinforced Result-Based Management Approach and a Human Rights-Based Approach to Programming. It was developed through a widespread consultation process, involving staff from Headquarters, Regional and Country Offices. • A HRBAP was progressively applied within UNICEF to its different sectors, beginning with protection, and moving to education, health and, more recently, to water and sanitation programmes. There has also been a significant effort at documentation. The 35 case studies commissioned by UNICEF Country Offices undertaken by UNICEF are a rich source of experiences on ways to promote HRBAP in UNICEF, both programmatically and organisationally. They have not been produced using a standardised format, which would make them more easily amenable to comparison, but a lengthy analysis has been produced (Theis, 2004). They do, however, demonstrate a strong emphasis on excluded and marginalised groups. Most address the use of the principles of indivisibility and interdependence, which helped Planning Officers to strengthen child protection projects and to integrate child protection issues with health or education projects. Child protection has been used to introduce rights concepts and thinking within UNICEF. • Two Global Consultations (Tanzania, 2002 and Ecuador, 2003) have brought a number of thinkers and practitioners of HRBAP together to identify issues requiring further study and to assess how best to move ahead in refining and implementing the approach. • UNICEF’s more advanced stage of implementation helped it play an influencing role in the 2003 Stamford interagency meeting and the resulting interagency common understanding. Internal institutional change Responsibility for developing and implementing the HRBAP has been shared between HQ and Country Offices. The Inception Report for the evaluation of UNICEF’s capacity building project also notes that the role of the New York HQ has been ‘to provide support, coordination, guidance, and often to push the HRBAP agenda’. Responsibility was more recently given to the Division of Policy and Planning. UNICEF’s decentralised structure gives Country and Regional Directors, as well as Senior Planning Officers, a key role in the programming process. In addition to changing policy and procedures, UNICEF has invested significantly in staff capacity through training. Senior staff appear to have played a particular important role. In addition to formal management positions (such as heads of Country Offices), the Inception Report also identifies influence beyond formal management structures, such as semi-retired senior staff who ‘command respect and exercise leadership’. It also notes that ‘an ethical and principled approach to the work seems 88 particularly relevant when considering the way HRBAP has spread within the organisation’ (Robert and Englehardt, 2005). Adapting to context UNICEF’s Quito Global Consultation in 2003 showed that the organisation was using different approaches successfully in different country settings. In Latin America, for example, an initial focus on reforming national laws to conform with the CRC led many Country Offices to promote policy and institutional reform, with an eye toward establishing an overall environment in which children’s rights are guaranteed and standards against which to hold duty-bearers accountable are clearly spelled out. In countries where laws, policies, and institutions are often less well developed or deeply rooted, Country Offices have focused more heavily on building community capacity to demand and fulfil children’s rights – while at the same time exposing state-level duty-bearers to human rights principles and the policies required to guarantee them. This is the approach adopted in Eastern and Southern Africa. UNICEF’s work in Vietnam shows how progress can be slowly achieved even in difficult environments where notions of human rights appear not to coincide with the political system and culture (see Annex 7.2.2). Different roles for UNICEF UNICEF notes that a HRBA has helped an institutional transformation, away from direct delivery of services based on a needs-based approach, towards building the capacity of local actors and working in partnerships with a range of actors. This has included a shift towards working on institutions, policies and laws needed to ensure that children’s rights are respected and promoted, as illustrated by a range of programmes in Latin America. Progress reviews UNICEF has been undertaking annual reviews of its implementation of a HRBAP. Keyword search on Country Offices Annual Reports were used to analyse progress for 1999, 2000-01, and 2002. In 2004, a study aimed to assess progress over a 5- year period (Raphael, 2004). In order to avoid the shortcomings of a key word approach, a new optional set of six questions was added to the Country Office Annual Report format (which will become compulsory next year). The main findings (based on optional responses from about half the Country Offices) are: • About 75% of staff are said to understand the approach and training was seen as valuable. The study however recommended continuing with training efforts, in particular in regions at an early stage of HRBAP implementation and for new staff. • The HRBAP is taking root: 56% of reporting countries had used a HRBAP to design their country programme or undertake a country analysis; 36% reported having adopted a more multi-sectoral approach. • Other changes in focus, design and approach include: building partners capacity; reaching the most excluded; ensuring greater participation; focusing on legal reforms; developing a broader set of partnerships. • A HRBAP was seen to improve UNICEF effectiveness, primarily through improved cooperation with partners, but also within UN country teams, in projects and planning. There were fewer examples of improved cooperation with CRC/CEDAW committees, PRSPs or resource mobilisation. • There seems to be a good understanding of principles and theory. However, Country Offices were considered to need documentation of existing UNICEF good practices prepared for operational use, in particular for the regions that had less exposure to the approach. 89 Challenges The Progress Review identified two sets of challenges, first concerning partner countries, and second internal to UNICEF, as well as some responses. Context: • The operations of government structures in partner countries, in particular when they operate in a highly centralised manner, with limited accountability. Responses included working to enhance domestic accountability, for example through the public monitoring of budgets. • Some country contexts present greater challenges, such as war-torn societies, widespread poverty or extremely weak capacity, where basic survival or institution-building is seen as a priority. • There can also be open political resistance to human rights, for example in the context of sharp ethnic divisions where collecting disaggregated data or providing education in native languages is not politically acceptable. • Resistance to human rights goes beyond governments and can include social norms and values, such as opposition to child and adolescent participation and a preference for seeing aid as charity. Responses included communications strategies and paying more attention to the cultural context. • A community-focused HRBA approach could be demanding of communities and slow in delivering results (e.g. Zimbabwe experience) Internal to UNICEF and donor agencies: • Internal capacity gaps, such as limited understanding, over-stretched staff, or resistance to an approach that may be perceived to be more difficult, such as focusing on process and not just outcomes, the possibility of confrontation with governments. • Bringing other partners on board can be difficult and time-consuming. It requires time, training and dialogue. Staff-turnover is a factor. Strategies included a range of efforts through conferences, training or demonstrating success through projects. • Other donors may not always be favourable to a HRBAP, for example putting cost-recovery or private sector legal security first. • A few Country Offices reported the need for more practical guidance focusing on results to be achieved. Lessons • UNICEF has invested in documenting its change process which provides the basis for further DAC policy and guidance development. • Clear instructions from the very top of the organisation as well as revisions to procedures and programming manual have given prominence to the approach at an institutional level. • There is a difference emerging between Country Offices which have been working on HRBAP for some years and those that are still relatively new. • Some bilateral agencies may feel that UNICEF should be considered an exception, given the special role played by the CRC and the focus on less controversial and more clearly defined children’s rights. However, a number of lessons, in particular with regards to institutional change and approach to country programming, are still relevant for other agencies. Sources: Moser and Moser (2003); Piron and Court (2003); Raphael (2004); Theis (2004); Robert and Englehardt (2005). 90 Annex 7.1.3: DFID’s experiences with human rights and development Introduction This annex reproduces the first part of the executive summary of the DFID Human Rights Review. It describes the wide range of activities funded by DFID in recent years, but does not cover lessons learnt or recommendations. Annex 7.2.3 provides a summary of DFID’s experience with a rights-based approach in Peru. DFID Human Rights Review This review is the most detailed examination of a bilateral agency’s experiences found by our research. It is a desk study; it was not an independent evaluation, nor an assessment of how far DFID had implemented its human rights policy. It did not draw on field work or consultation with partners. The review was commissioned by DFID’s ‘Reaching the Very Poorest’ Team in the Policy Division. Its purpose was to gain a greater understanding of DFID’s human rights work, drawing on a portfolio of activities that DFID supports. The focus is on lessons to be learned from experiences on the ground, covering a range of sectors and initiatives, in particular at country level. The review attempts to show how human rights can make a contribution to poverty reduction at the normative, analytical and operational levels. It concludes with a few forward-looking recommendations. The main finding was that there is a large body of work integrating human rights into development policy and programmes, supported by DFID at the international, national and sectoral/thematic levels, and in differing country contexts. There is also an important constituency of staff, across departments and professional backgrounds, who have an interest in human rights and are developing innovative approaches and activities. Central level Support to a number of international organisations, including in the areas of: • capacity for developing and monitoring international human rights standards (Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights); • development of a UN common understanding on the meaning of a human rights-based approach to development, at the 2003 UN inter-agency meeting; • practical implementation of human rights-based approaches in the UN (UNICEF) as well as by international NGOs (ActionAid). Innovative research activities, often drawing on field experiences in country programmes and feeding directly into new strategies or interventions: • voice, participation and accountability; • linkages between livelihoods and rights; • making budgets transparent and participatory; • analysis of the relationships between rights, poverty, growth and inequality; • new participatory tools (Participatory Rights Assessment Methodologies). A range of policy developments to guide interventions, such as: • supporting the move within civil society away from solely a service delivery role, towards building local capacity for policy engagement, monitoring and advocacy; • a pro-poor approach to safety, security and access to justice; and • policy development on core labour standards and poverty reduction. 91 Country level Use of a human rights analysis to inform strategy and set overall objectives, such as: • using the three DFID human rights operational principles (participation, inclusion and fulfilling obligation), in particular highlighting social exclusion and inequality in Latin America (Bolivia, Brazil and Peru); • using gender equality and non-discrimination as overarching principles (Bangladesh); and • using an analysis of international human rights standards and reporting obligations (Overseas Territories). Integration of human rights into country programmes, such as: • work on pro-poor governance and the development of rights-based sectoral interventions in health, education and livelihoods (Malawi); and • commissioning research on human rights and citizenship to inform the future direction of the country strategy and programme (Rwanda). Integration of human rights into strategic aspects of programme delivery, such as: • human rights dialogue in bilateral talks (China); • a Memorandum of Understanding outlining common commitments to the promotion and protection of human rights (Rwanda); • incorporating human rights into decisions on the use of aid instruments, such as in relation to direct budget support (Uganda); and • working with others, such as engaging with the European Commission in the Middle East and North Africa so that human rights play a fuller part in dialogue and programmes. Sectoral level Supporting particular groups in claiming and enforcing their rights, such as: • women, through supporting the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (China) and work with UNIFEM on gender and racism (Brazil); • children, through a process to develop a child protection strategy (Overseas Territories); • minorities, through work on social inclusion of the Roma minority (Eastern Europe); • indigenous peoples (Latin America); • workers, through substantial work on core labour standards, including support to the International Labour Organisation and work on child labour and child trafficking (India and South-East Asia); and • working on the ‘demand side’ of justice reform, by enabling poor people to know, claim and defend their rights through public information campaigns on land inheritance rights for women (Zimbabwe) or public interest litigation (Bangladesh). Assisting social and political processes to make governments more respectful of the rights of citizens, such as: • work with civil society, for example in a coordinated approach to civic education and women’s political empowerment (Kenya), or explicitly based on human rights principles (Bangladesh); • strengthening accountability through parliaments, including through improved engagement with civil society (Malawi); • support for electoral processes in many parts of Africa to promote free and fair elections; 92  • support for the media, including radio as a source of information as part of peace-building (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and encouraging media self-regulation to balance freedom of speech with legitimate restrictions (Russia); and • public expenditure management, for example support for the right to participate in resource allocation decisions through district-level monitoring committees (Uganda). Assisting the state in respecting, protecting or fulfilling human rights, such as: • focusing on poor people’s access to justice and undertaking sector-wide reforms in the security and justice sector (Malawi); • developing culturally relevant policies and systems to provide protection from domestic violence and child abuse (Jordan); • providing protection during and after conflict (funding a UN human rights presence in Iraq; support for the UN Special Representative of the Secretary- General on Children in Armed Conflict; and support for UNIFEM in protection of women in conflict situations); • developing rights-based approaches to health service delivery (Peru and Nepal); and • involving communities in school management and the monitoring of service delivery in Africa. Source: Piron and Watkins (2004). 93 Annex 7.2: Country programmes 7.2.1: Sida Kenya programme Introduction Sida’s work in Kenya provides a good illustration of how to integrate a democracy and human rights perspective at different country programming levels. Country strategy The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Sida have been working closely together to adopt a more strategic approach. This began with efforts to develop a more coherent strategy for dialogue with government towards the end of the KANU era in 2002, in particular given the multiplicity of donor dialogue mechanisms. This led to the development of a strategy focusing on equality, participation and good governance, allocating responsibilities to all staff to engage in dialogue. At the same time, a new country strategy was being developed. The country analysis identified the lack of good governance and the government’s lack of commitment to fulfilling human rights obligations as being fundamental obstacles to development. This process required internal negotiation within the embassy (e.g. between the economist and the human rights adviser). The overall objective of Swedish development cooperation for Kenya during 2004-08 which resulted from this process is to contribute to Kenyan efforts to reduce poverty by improving democratic governance. Improving service delivery is seen as central and as requiring the integration of the principles of: non-discrimination and equality regardless of regional differences, gender and age; accountability; transparency; and participation. Sida’s strategy rests on three pillars: • democracy and human rights as a focus programme area, with direct support to human rights organisations and to the Governance, Justice, Law and Order Reform Programme, both through government and civil society; • dialogue on human rights and democracy, focusing on inequality and discrimination; and • the integration of a democracy and human rights-based approach across the programme, in particular in roads, urban development, health, agriculture, water and justice. Dialogue In order to pursue the dialogue objectives, a project was established within the embassy with the goal of putting ‘equality for growth’ on the public agenda, working with CSOs/research bodies, media, other donors and decision-makers in the executive and Parliament. A MoU was established between the Ministry for Planning and National Development, the Society for International Development (an implementing NGO) and Sida. The project has been engaged in different activities with the aim of promoting discussion about inequality, including bringing together data on inequality in Kenya and assisting the ministry to disseminate its poverty map to line ministries. The Ambassador has been writing in the press on inequalities. Three forms of inequalities have been highlighted: gender, regional and income. This has now become a national issue and the project has grown to include other partners such as UNDP and ActionAid. A national conference is being planned for next year. Mainstreaming In 2003, the Mainstreaming in Action Project (MAINIAC) was set up in order to better integrate human rights and democracy principles (non-discrimination, participation, 94 accountability and transparency) into the sectoral programmes funded by Sida. It aims to build the capacity of the Government of Kenya and other key actors to identify and use mainstreaming indicators, undertake implementation in a manner that promotes mainstreaming, participate in dialogue, and develop an adequate monitoring and evaluation system. The sectors are: roads; water; health; integrated land and urban; governance, justice, law and order; and agriculture. To date, the project has been able to: • Build the capacity of Sida programme staff to develop indicators and participate in dialogue with government on mainstreaming issues in the assessment and implementation of programmes. • Develop a network of local resource persons to support the design and implementation process. They comment on programme documents, participate in seminars and build the capacity of staff in Ministries. Resource persons come from local organisations, such as, amongst many others, the International Federation of Women’s Lawyers (FIDA), the Institute for Law and Environmental Governance or the Child Rights Advisory Documentation and Legal Centre, as well as UN agencies, such as UNIFEM and UNICEF. • Illustrations of the approach include: o in the agricultural sector, the seminar was held for district managers in agriculture and livestock, in the government, and in the National Agriculture and Livestock Extension Programme. o At the roads seminar, 130 persons were involved identifying 30 recommendations. A characteristic of the roads project is its high degree of local participation, with attention paid to how women and children can benefit, and local accountability structures and publicising information about the initiatives at local markets. o In the water sector, there has been emphasis on accountability to the public of the new water boards. • There is government ownership of the process, with the President of Kenya having stated that he wants Kenya to be ‘a rights-based state’ and participation of the official Kenyan National Human Rights Commission. In April 2005, the Commission held with the Swedish Embassy a joint experience-sharing workshop on rights-based approaches, which influenced the planning of government budgets as well as the human rights action plan. It highlighted the following elements of a human rights-based approach: o Consultations to obtain people’s views o Capacity-building, including human rights awareness o Communication and information o Complaints mechanisms o Cooperation across government Source: Interviews with Sida staff and Sida Kenya programme documentation. 95 Annex 7.2.2: UNICEF country programme in Vietnam Introduction As part of its documentation of its experiences with HRBAP, UNICEF has commissioned a case study of its Vietnam experiences. This annex summarises the main findings. HRBA can be applied in more difficult environments. This requires a careful analysis of the functioning of political, economic and social systems, in order to identify national windows of opportunity. UNICEF requires government approval for all its activities. While tight control characterised UNICEF’s work until the doi moi reform process, staff then became able to travel and interact with sub-national counterparts, and engage in policy advice. As Vietnam opened to the international economy, it also worked on nationalising international concepts which created a favourable context for introducing child rights. UNICEF’s progress, however, has been closely linked to the political strengths of reform forces within the Communist Party. Progress can only be achieved in this environment in close concert with the authorities: ‘HRBP can become acceptable within a political environment such as Vietnam only when it has evolved from a successful political dialogue at the very highest levels’. Strategic elements included making progress in the more traditional social and economic rights areas while using appropriate political momentum to include more sensitive civil, political and cultural rights. UNICEF adopted a progressive approach which yielded results over time. • Without using the sensitive language of rights, situation analyses and master plans of operations promoted the principles and general underlying ideas behind a rights perspective. This enabled government partners to become progressively more comfortable with the approach. • Senior UNICEF management staff were the most important agents of change in the process. • Trust was based on UNICEF’s continuous presence since the war in 1975, even during the western-led embargo. • The process included a broadening of counterparts, including in the Committee for the Protection of Care of Children and the Women’s Union. The Committee broadened understanding of child rights across the state and society and enabled child rights language to find itself in official documents. • Thus ‘patience, persistence and appropriate strategies for the use of language were instrumental in the process’. UNICEF achievements In order to make children the subjects of rights in the legal system, UNICEF assisted with a variety of partners and studies starting in 1996, including a workshop with members of the National Assembly. Master trainings on children’s rights with the Ho Chi Minh Political Academy lead to a network on children’s rights, which meets twice a year and discusses issues of moving child rights in academic training. In partnership with the Ministries of Justice and of Public Security, there have been trainings for judges, lawyers, prosecutors, police, prison staff and border guards. Work on juvenile justice started in 1996 with disseminating international standards and their integration in the reform of the Criminal Court and Criminal Procedure Code. UNICEF has moved to train a wider range of staff and is the only agency allowed to work in prisons. By 2002 the Polit Bureau called upon the government to create a special court for families and juveniles, and UNICEF has supported discussion of the proposal and an intersectoral Plan of Action for Juvenile Justice. Constraints in making more progress have included the scale of UNICEF support, based in a small rights promotion project; the sensitive nature of reforms aimed at strengthening the 96 status of citizens vis-à-vis the state, and the priority given by the government to legal reform in relation to the economic sector (e.g. for WTO accession). Work in the area of child protection has also been challenging. The CRC recommends national systems of social work and counselling and non-institutional forms of child-care. However, there are few trained professionals, such as social workers. There seems to be ideological resistance to this approach; and there are few independent NGOs, which usually provide a central role in such systems. In the 1990s, however, UNICEF and others were able to advocate for alternative care. Following a conference in Stockholm in 2002, the government decided to review its policy of institutional care and replace it with alternative models of community-based care. This involved a wide range of consultations with officials, though less participation by non-state actors such as parents or children themselves. The policy change was also prompted by rising numbers of children in need of care and insufficient state budget to meet this need. Other areas of progress have included a more integrated approach to policy development in child policy, with UNICEF supporting the development of Vietnam’s first national family strategy (which still does not mention the need for establishing a national profession of social workers), as well as different efforts to encourage more participation within UNICEF programmes. In 2001, UNICEF supported the review of the National Action Plan for Children, and the preparation of the next one. This was the first time children from all parts of the country discussed child policies and programmes with the political leadership. There has been less progress with developing monitoring and accountability structures, in particular outside the state. Child rights provide an entry point for HRBAP • The Convention on the Rights of the Child created an entry point to work on child rights. The Convention had been developed with the support of socialist countries during the 1980s, and was found to be politically acceptable to the Vietnamese Communist Party and Government, which ratified the Convention early, starting a process of implementation measures, such as legal reforms and action plans to harmonise laws, policies and practices. • The rights of indigenous people can be difficult to address. In Vietnam, and East Asia more generally, the rights of indigenous peoples is seen as a matter of national security and can be taboo. This contrasts with Latin America, where such issues are publicly debated. • There has also been less progress on women’s rights. Though CEDAW was ratified before the CRC, it took longer to disseminate it across government and society. Its integration in the national legal system is still weaker than the CRC, reflecting stronger cultural and political resistance. Economic liberalisation can constrain the realisation of economic and social rights Vietnam’s process of privatisation and economic reforms is seen as having contributed to poverty reduction, but this has been associated with processes of marginalisation as subsidies are cut back and service delivery is reformed. Given that the government is committed to equity, it is difficult for outside actors to raise concerns over discrimination and social exclusion. The author of the case study is concerned that neither government nor international financial institutions define their economic policies in a human rights framework and that UNICEF’s capacity is weak to negotiate in those areas. It recommends UNICEF engagement with the World Bank and IMF in a ‘critical dialogue about ethics in economics’ and on MDG 8 so that human development concerns are taken into account. Source: Christian Salazar-Volkman (2003). 97 Annex 7.2.3: Active citizenship: innovative approaches to DFID rights-based programming in Peru Introduction This annex looks at the innovative ways in which DFID Peru applied a rights-based approach to its programming between 2000 and 2005 and the key lessons that were drawn from this experience. The information presented is based on a study that DFID commissioned to document its experiences in Peru in the context of its departure from the country in March 2005. This multi-authored study set out to obtain different perspectives. As such, it contains principal contributions from both (i) DFID advisers and the Head of Peru Office as well as (ii) Latin American academics who were asked to reflect on DFID’s experience in Peru and who were supported in this process by the DFID Peru team. The book also contains numerous contributions from DFID’s partners in Peru who were also given the opportunity to comment on this process. Context DFID’s country programme in Peru was particularly shaped by two factors: (i) DFID’s analysis regarding the causes of poverty in Peru; and (ii) the conceptual framework shared by the DFID Peru advisory team. This framework centred on three themes – a rights-based approach, citizenship and accountability – and informed how the team sought to address the causes of poverty in Peru. Whilst the rights-based approach adopted by the Peru team drew on DFID’s policy paper, Realising Human Rights for Poor People, it is also clear that they were able to take a rights-based approach further than has been the case in most other DFID programmes. One of the reasons for this was the experience and relative autonomy of the advisory team in Peru (and the strong links it had with the DFID Bolivian office). Another was the dominant discourses within DFID regarding the issues of inequality, governance and rights in Latin America. DFID’s main analytical entry point in Peru was the country’s extreme inequality. Despite being a middle-income country, Peru has sustained high levels of poverty. DFID Peru’s analysis of the historical causes of poverty and exclusion in Peru made it clear that working towards DFID’s objective of poverty would require a strategy that addressed the exclusionary power relations and ethnic discrimination that underlined Peru’s inequality. This led to focus on inclusive citizenship and rights through the strengthening of relations between state and society. Translating concepts into action For the Peru team, the concept of active citizenship provided the bridge between state and citizen, and political events in Peru provided the opportunity for them to give greater emphasis to the role of both government and civil society in supporting poor people’s actions. This concept was translated into practice through activities aimed not only at building the capacity of duty-bearers and rights-holders but also at strengthening the relationships between state and society. This was approached in two main ways. (i) By strengthening accountability through support both to the mechanisms of citizen participation and oversight and to the formal institutions of representative democracy. (ii) By cultivating new alliances for change, and nurturing existing network, within and beyond Peru, with an emphasis on bringing together those civil society actors working on civil and political rights (human rights organisations) and those working on economic, social and cultural rights (organisations working on sustainable development and poverty reduction). 98 Supporting institutions for political inclusion The change of government in Peru in 2000 provided opportunities for DFID to support actions to facilitate public participation at the local and national levels in an attempt to transform Peru’s ‘top-down’ system of governance. DFID undertook various programmes to operationalise this part of the country strategy. The Programme in Support of Electoral Processes (PAPE) and Programme in Support of Regional/Municipal Elections (El Gol) entailed working with a coalition of state and civil society organisations to facilitate electoral education and oversight during national (presidential and congressional) and regional (regional and municipal) elections with a view to strengthening citizenship by fostering the active involvement of poor people in the electoral process. It was hoped that this would make the political elite more responsive to the voice of the poor and further the realisation of poor people’s economic and social rights through the exercise of their political rights. Whilst the first programme had limited impact in terms of combating political exclusion, it did allow DFID to establish new working relationships and provided valuable lesson learning for the subsequent regional programme, including on the need to facilitate debate and the adoption of common positions between partner institutions. It also highlighted the difficultly of promoting citizenship among the most disadvantaged as relationships with local communities tended to be mediated by the local political elite. As a result, the El Gol project, which involved both the provision of training to mayors and supporting citizens to undertake participatory budgeting, provided closer coordination among the institutions involved, including pooled resources and common platforms, and focused its efforts on reaching poor votes in the most marginalised areas. DFID also provided support to political parties themselves and the system in which they operated. One of DFID’s concerns was that, in order for poor people to capitalise on the opportunities presented by the increased democratic environment, Peru’s political parties needed to provide a more effective bridge between state and society. DFID’s strategy had two main components: (i) Providing support to the redesign of the institutional and legal framework in which the political parties operated, in particular by bringing together state and civil society actors to discuss and achieve consensus on a new Law of Political Parties and a reform of the electoral code. The logic of the new law was to create a system of incentives to establish and institutionalise a party system that was responsive to its voters. One of the ways it did this was by encouraging party consolidation by creating barriers to small, unrepresentative parties. It also created obligations with respect to internal democracy and financial transparency. After the law was adopted by parliament, DFID was also involved in supporting the relevant state body in overseeing its implementation. (ii) Working with the parties themselves to help them to interact and to attempt to influence them to think more about poverty and how to tackle it. This is clearly a sensitive area for a donor to be engaged in and, as with the programme discussed below, DFID contributed to and benefited from work undertaken at a regional level in this area, particularly by the Inter-American Development Bank. An example of a project in which DFID engaged was the Agora project, which involved a series of meetings that brought together militants from a wide range of parties to discuss issues of joint concern about how to strengthen party governance. In doing so, it sought to emphasise the inclusiveness of political parties by facilitating the participation of all parties in the discussion and by 99  encouraging the involvement of local party activists, including the women and the young, by, for example, holding meetings outside Lima. The Political and Financial Accountability Programme encourages political inclusion through the review of fiscal issues, notably tax reform and budget transparency, in order to encourage greater accountability and responsiveness to poor people. This innovative programme derives from collaborative work with the IADB at the regional level on tax reform, which has allowed DFID to broach what is a politically sensitive issue. The programme focuses on the equity potential and accountability functions of fiscal policy, in particular through ensuring that resources reach groups identified as excluded, on the expenditure side, and promoting the perspective that paying taxes is not only a duty (according to means) but also creates rights, on the revenue- creation side. As such, the programme introduces a focus on equity and accountability, rather than simply efficiency, into revenue policy. Supporting networks for realising rights Broadening DFID’s networking and alliance-building activities with government and civil society, as well as the international community, in order to engage with and influence different arenas of dialogue and negotiation, was a strategic decision for DFID Peru. One of the programmes DFID undertook to achieve this objective was the Improving the Health of the Poor through a Rights-based Approach Programme. With this programme, DFID sought to utilise a rights-based approach to healthcare to improve access for Peru’s poorest citizens by supporting already existing networks of health professionals, which included the Social and Economic Research Consortium (CIES). The CIES had produced a study in the late 1990s that had challenged the success of Peru’s supply-side health sector reform. It found that a quarter of Peru’s population continued to lack access to healthcare, indicating capture by the urban middle-class and the exclusion of the most marginalised communities. In the face of government attempts to close down public debate on this issue, the CIES sought institutional support from DFID. The DFID programme had the dual objective of improving the public services run by the Ministry of Health and defending citizens’ health rights by supporting both the Ombudsman’s Office and civil society organisations. One project initiated to achieve this aim involved the establishment of a national umbrella network, ForoSalud, to facilitate debate about health policy and the formulation of alternative proposals to the government’s. Lessons • The capacity to think innovatively about supporting the realisation of rights and pro-poor change in Peru was shaped both by institutional factors (such as the autonomy and experience of DFID advisors, prevailing assessment of the key causes of poverty in Latin America within DFID) and the wider environment in which the team were working (such as political changes within Peru). • The advisory team grounded their programme in a deep understanding of Peru’s history and the ways in which this had shaped its structures and institutions and the power relations between its actors. Combined with their shared conceptual framework and their commitment to engaging with wider conceptual debates about political and social change, this provided a lens through which to analyse the causes of poverty in Peru, to understand recent national and local changes and to translate these into a programme for action. One of the key conclusions was that many of Peru’s problems lay in the political, not technical, domain. This led DFID to adopt an approach to tackling inequality and exclusion that, inter alia, centred on supporting more inclusive political institutions through support for alliances of change. 100 • An innovative element of the right-based approach adopted in Peru was the explicit recognition that, because it involves the attempt to change power relations within society, it is an inherently political approach, and that this meant that DFID was itself a political actor. These issues raised difficult issues regarding the legitimacy of action, the practice of power and lines of accountability, and meant that there was the potential for conflict between DFID and the state. For instance, questions regarding the ‘right’ of a donor agency to intervene in domestic political processes emerged from, inter alia, DFID’s work with political parties and its health sector programme, which emphasised citizen rights to quality healthcare and supported organisations overtly critical of the government’s policy. • All of the programmes undertaken in Peru reflected the importance of fostering a bridge between state and civil society, rather than working simply with one or other actor, and of seeking to build broad coalitions that involved a variety of actors. However, many of them also highlighted the difficulties and tensions this involved in practice. For instance, the critical stance(s) of the organisation involved in the health network, ForoSalud, undermined its ability to achieve internal consensus and foster relations of trust with the Ministry of Health. • Peru’s middle-income status meant that, at £3-4 million per year, the budget for the country programme budget was relatively small. However, the team were able to make an impact because their assessment was that poverty and inequality in Peru resulted, not from lack of knowledge about what to do to reduce poverty, but from uncertainty about how to do it. This led the Peru team to focus its efforts on supporting processes rather than providing technical assistance. • The departure of DFID from Peru has underscored the necessarily long-term nature of rights-based programming. For example, while some of the networks that DFID has been supporting have become institutionalised, others remain incipient and may not survive in the absence of support. Other, pre-existing, political groups that have been collaborating with DFID may also lose momentum once DFID withdraws. Source: DFID (2005a); Beall and Piron (2004); Piron and Watkins (2004). 101 Annex 7.3: Programmes/projects 7.3.1: SDC and UNICEF’s Girl Child Project: combating discrimination The Girl Child Project is a joint SDC-UNICEF collaboration implemented by Family Planning Association of Pakistan (FPAP). It is a component of both SDC-Pakistan’s Rights and Non-Formal Education Sector programme and UNICEF’s Advocacy and Communication programme, one of the objectives of which is to support government and civil society in implementing the CRC and CEDAW. The project addresses the deep-seated structural discrimination faced by women and girls in Pakistan by building the capacity of adolescent girls from marginalised rural and urban communities and raising awareness about rights. Initially involving pilots in 10 locations, the project had reached 730 communities and 35,500 girls by the end of 2004. The objective of this project is to mobilise girls to become role models and agents of change in their communities. This is achieved through a range of activities, including: 1. Building the capacity of girls by providing them with visible skills that are useful within their community. The project provides two main courses to meet this objective: • Home School Training. This course addresses the lack of equal access to education for girls and their subsequent lower levels of literacy by training girls to set up their own home schools. This provides them with a source of income and non-formal education for other girls within the community. 11-12 girls were completing basic education in the community in each location, a total of 1,185 girls by end 2004. • First Aid Techniques. This course responds to the lack of trained medical professionals in marginalised areas and provides training for girls to provide first aid within their community and treat minor ailments. These capacity-building activities have a real impact on the girls themselves by enhancing their perceived value and improving their status within their family and community. Moreover, by motivating the girls to initiate small-scale activities, such as the home schools, they also have a positive and cascading impact on other girls within the community. 2. Providing the girls with leadership and negotiation skills. Those involved in the project report that one of its biggest impacts is transforming the sense of self- worth and confidence of those who take part. The training inspires leadership and volunteer spirit in the girls, mobilising them to improve conditions in their home and communities. Furthermore, by teaching the girls persuasion skills, the project enables the girls to obtain support for these activities from their family and community elders (see box below). This has led to increased community commitment for educating girls. 3. Awareness that boys have a large role to play in creating an enabling environment for the fulfilment of girls’ rights has led to the inclusion of adolescent boys in the project. 102 Applying negotiation skills in practice Jannat Bibi, who lives in a village near Badin, Sindh in South Pakistan, was engaged to an older man at the age of 3. After participating in the Girl Child Project when she was 16, Jannat became aware that she had the right to make her own decisions about her life. The project trainers encouraged Jannat not to rebel against her family but to instead work to convince her elders to support her choices. The training that Jannat had received gave her knowledge about her rights and the confidence to begin the long process of persuading her family that she should be able to cancel the engagement. Despite initial strong resistance, Jannat was able to achieve her aim. She feels that, by giving her the skills to do this, the Girl Child Project has changed her life. A notable feature of the project is that its methodology enables girls to obtain their rights without inducing a negative reaction from the family and community. A key constraint that the project initially faced was resistance from within some communities, including from religious leaders, to the involvement of their girl children in the project. FPAP overcame these constraints through concentrated one-to-one advocacy efforts to convince key members of the community of the benefits of the project. These skills were also imparted to the individual girls. By providing them with skills that improve their status within their families and communities and by teaching them negotiation and persuasion skills, the project enables girls to obtain their rights in a culturally sensitive and non-confrontational manner. This unique element clearly increases the sustainability of the project’s achievements. The concern with sustainability is also demonstrated by FPAP's current concern with developing an exit strategy for the project by identifying potential links with existing community-based mechanisms. They are also conducting a Training of Master Trainers course. A separate evaluation of the project was undertaken by some of the children who had been involved. They also participated in the production of a film documenting the impact of the project through their eyes, which is being used as an advocacy tool at local, national and international levels. The success of this project has led to it being selected for a number of awards and girls from the project have been included in a number of UN events. It has also had a significant impact on SDC’s entire country programme in Pakistan. It first led to the development of a human rights strategy which established human rights both as a sector (the promotion of women’s and children’s rights) and as a cross-cutting issue for the country programme as a whole. This was subsequently developed further and a human rights-based approach has been adopted for the current country programme. Sources: Ashen, Saman (2004); UNICEF (2004). 103 Annex 7.3.2: DFID’s Right to Identity Project in Bolivia: combating discrimination DFID is currently completing a co-funded programme to promote the right to identity in Bolivia (May 2004 – September 2005). At least 10% of the Bolivian population does not have a birth certificate (as high as 55% in marginalised areas). Between 20- 30% do not have an identification card (as high as 84% in some areas). The lack of legal documentation prevents citizens’ participation in the political process, in particular in indigenous areas. Bolivia is currently undergoing a period of political instability. The national electoral court was perceived as inefficient and unable to register citizens in rural areas. In addition, a lack of knowledge of citizens’ rights and obligations has limited political participation. The most affected are those who are not literate; those who do not speak Spanish; or those that do not readily accept the concept of democracy, for cultural or other reasons. The purpose of the project is to promote more inclusive political participation through the strengthening of the capacities of the state and of citizens to demand rights and fulfil obligations. Expected results include: • The provision of identification documents to undocumented Bolivians (in particular the poor, women and indigenous people). • Civil society, civil registration officials and members of the electoral court being better informed and with raised awareness about citizens’ rights and the processes to promote a more inclusive participation in the referendum and the municipal elections. • The increase of capacity of the National Electoral Court and Registration Service to efficiently and effectively undertake the referendum and elections, and the creation of an institutional plan to strengthen the institutions, for the medium term. The project is still ongoing, so it is not possible to identify concrete results and impacts. Its design and initial phase however have shown that: • Documentation and registration campaigns can help reduce the number of undocumented persons in Bolivia. • Laws, procedures and processes, however, also need to change in the search for sustainable results. This is why the project is also addressing the need to build capacity in the National Electoral Court. • Political tension and poor communication between state and civil society has made formal coordination at the national level difficult. It is easier at the departmental level, where departmental electoral courts, national police and ombudsman have constituted registration brigades Source: Various (2004). 104 Annex 7.3.2: From the rule of law to access to justice Rule of law There are a number of documented good practices in the rule of law area. USAID provides an example of such work, which can be used to build state capacity to meet fundamental rights standards, for example in the area of criminal justice. USAID is one of the leading bilateral agencies in the field of the rule of law. It has worked in this area for almost 20 years and has significant capacity at headquarters to undertake lesson-learning exercises and develop new tools. It has a body of contractors able to deliver rule of law activities in over 50 USAID Country Offices. Though USAID does not have a human rights policy, a number of its rule of law activities contribute to improving respect for civil rights. In the 1980s, justice programmes were developed in Latin America aimed at reducing abuses. In Bolivia, USAID engagement began in 1986 and since 1992 has been in support of national rule of law modernisation. A significant achievement has been the reform of the criminal justice system. In 2001, an oral, accusatory process was introduced based on a UN model criminal code. USAID provided assistance to convert it into one specifically designed for Bolivia; training in the new code for criminal court judges; and for the establishment of an Office of Public Defence in the Ministry of Justice so that the constitutional right to defence could be respected in practice. 200 public defenders now provide representation to the majority of criminal justice defendants. It is reported that more precautionary measures are being used and that times in pre-trial detention are being reduced (interview). Access to justice Donor policies and practices have moved towards adopting a HRBA to rule of law and law enforcement work (either explicitly or implicitly). Below are four examples of such work from different agencies. A focus on access to justice as an aspect of programming has been adopted by agencies which have not embraced a HRBA, such as the World Bank or USAID. In Bolivia for example, USAID is supporting the development of Integrated Justice Centres to improve access to justice for isolated populations who are predominantly indigenous. The Centres are located in areas in which the central government has tenuous authority. They house trained professionals who can provide advice on the formal judicial system as well as conciliatory services to help resolve local conflicts. Another example submitted to the review was that of German collaboration in Zambia in support of women’s rights to institutionalise gender equality in law, and also work with customary law and lay judges. Legal information and awareness trainings have led to greater confidence by women and greater respect and support from men. DFID has more radically changed its policy, explicitly referring to ‘safety, security and access to justice’ and putting at the centre of the analysis poor people’s own experiences of insecurity and injustice. This has led to an integrated or ‘sector-wide approach’ which examines how a justice system operates as whole, and the need to work better across institutions, rather than with individual partners. Examples of programming can be found in the DFID human rights review (Piron and Watkins, 2004). Interestingly, DFID has not ‘branded’ its new policy as being HRBA, though it can be considered to be implicitly following it, with the exception of the lack of systematic attention to human rights standards. Its new policy on development and 105 security (2005) commits DFID to integrating SSAJ more systematically with security sector reform and human rights. SDC is in the process of updating its rule of law policy. This was one of the recommendations of the 2003 evaluation. The focus is moving towards poor and marginalised group’s ability to claim and enforce their rights. An example of good practice is provided by the South Africa juvenile justice project (implemented in collaboration with UNDP), which has been successful in supporting the development of a more appropriate youth justice system, in particular in the area of ‘diversion’. Its overarching goal was set in human rights language, by referencing the CRC (Article 37) and other international norms and standards. Both results and processes have been highlighted as providing examples of good practice. It showed, for example, that it was possible to work on policy reform even before the legal framework was finalised, and to prepare partners for implementation. Significant efforts were made to cost the Child Justice Bill adequately, which set a standard for future policy development processes. Project management was undertaken from within the Ministry, with a team combining a range of skills. An intersectoral approach was adopted (including the Treasury and provincial level officials), but the set of potential institutional partners and beneficiaries was limited (an annual average of 100,000 to 200,000 candidates for diversion). The focus was on child justice and not the full range of criminal justice reforms. Good relationships were developed with NGOs which established a coalition, the Child Justice Alliance, even though this was a governmental project. Austrian Development Cooperation is undertaking a similar project in the area of child justice which seeks to support the Government of Namibia in the process of amending its legislation and regulations so that they are consistent with its Constitution and international human rights commitments. The Child Justice in Namibia project contributes to this by addressing structural and professional deficits in legal system through the creation of an autonomous integrated Child Justice System. Establishing a Child Justice System would strengthen the ability of the Government of Namibia to protect the rights of children who come into conflict with the law and establish laws, procedures and institutions specifically applicable to them. In doing so, Namibia will also strengthen its compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. UNDP has developed an Access to Justice policy which is explicit in its emphasis on a HRBA. It prioritises people’s equal ability to use justice services – regardless of their gender, ethnicity, religion, political views, age, class, disability or other sources of distinction. In the Asia-Pacific region, a process of documenting lessons learned is underway (documentation not finalised). The approach shares with DFID a focus on the various stages and capacities needed for citizens to move from grievance to remedy, going through: recognition of a grievance, awareness of rights, claiming, adjudication and enforcement. This allows the justice system to be analysed from the perspective not just of institutions, but also of citizens and the barriers that they need to overcome. The Indonesia work is being documented. Key features of the process include an intensive element of research to understand barriers to accessing justice, by working through participative methods and with local researchers; small-scale pilot projects to reduce some of these obstacles, bringing together duty-holders and rights-bearers; and efforts directed at the informal sector in a first phase. The case study highlights that the approach is resource-intensive. It requires capacity on the part of the donor agency, in particular staff commitment when the work is innovative, as well as time, 106 funds and management capacity. It also requires identifying local partners willing to work in this new way. Sources: Banerjee et al. (2005); Del Buono and Rauch (2003); GTZ (2005); OHCHR (nd); Piron and Court (2003); Piron and Watkins (2004); DFID (2000b); UNDP (2002); USAID (2002); USAID website and interview. 107 Annex 7.3.4: UNIFEM support to women’s land rights in Central Asia It can be difficult for field offices to identify entry points for strengthening the capacity of duty-bearers and rights-holders. UNIFEM’s ‘Women’s Rights to Land in Central Asia’ Programme is an innovative example of how agencies can support and engage with national processes to further the realisation of human rights. UNIFEM used the opportunity of a regional land reform process to design a programme to strengthen the capacity and accountability of key actors to ensure women’s economic rights and security. The programme has been highlighted as reflecting ‘best practice’ in project design, approaches to implementation and creative collaboration with partners from government and civil society. It was suggested by some interviewees that a reason for field staff not utilising the human rights framework to inform and structure their programmes is that they simply lack the knowledge necessary to do so. To respond to this need, UNIFEM has produced ‘bridging analysis’ to translate human rights conventions into practical programming guidance to provide tools for human rights-based programming for one of its programmes. Linking the realisation of women’s rights to country processes Through its ‘Women’s Rights to Land in Central Asia’ Programme, UNIFEM is using the opportunity of the land reform process in the region as an entry point to strengthen the capacity and accountability of key actors to ensure women’s economic rights and security. The programme focuses on three countries – Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan – with the objective of combating the growing marginalisation of rural women and ensuring government accountability in upholding women’s rights in the land reform process. The programme is currently at different stages in each of the three countries, reflecting their different conditions, for instance the status of the land reform process, the capacity of implementing partners and political commitment on the part of the respective governments. Kyrgyzstan The programme began in 2002 in Kyrgyzstan and has been implemented in partnership with the Women Entrepreneurs Support Association and local government. A wide range of activities have been undertaken, including: • training programmes in seven provinces, which involved 80% of local administration and established commitments to take into account the needs of ‘the missing’ in order to correct the shortcomings of previous work in the land reform process; • information exchange between local leaders and the project; • the collection and analysis of practical cases during the process of drafting amendments to the Land Law; and • the production of practical manuals of land reform implementation. The mid-term review of this project suggested that it should be used to showcase ‘best practice’ in project design, approaches to implementation and the creation of collaboration with partners from government and civil society. The positive achievements of the programme to date include: • establishing an efficient monitoring and tracking results system based on a good baseline study; • developing and maintaining partnerships with various stakeholders; • submitting draft amendments to the existing Land Code and related policies to the relevant government agencies and Parliament of Kyrgyzstan; 108  • strengthening the capacity of local government officials and staff to better protect women’s rights to land; and • increasing the understanding of the general public about the importance of women’s land rights. Tajikistan Following a series of assessments based on fieldwork and legal and policy analysis, a series of challenges specific to Tajikistan were identified and validated during a national workshop attended by government, civil society and donors in 2002. This led to the launch of the ‘Land Rights and Economic Security for Rural Women’ project in 2003, which aims to ensure gender equality in access to and the use of land for economic initiatives. The project is operating in the context of the government land reform efforts and the privatisation of a large number of collective farms. This project has already had a number of positive impacts on policy and legislation, including: • Amendments to the Land Code, policies and legislation, and advocacy for state programmes became law in February 2004. • Amendments in relation to women’s access to land were incorporated into the Government’s 2001-10 policy on the equal rights and opportunities of men and women and approved by government. • A new methodology for the disaggregation of land reform data by sex was developed and presented for government endorsement for use in statistical reporting from 2005. Alongside working to influence policy and legislation, UNIFEM interventions seek to build the capacity of local partners to provide legal support and advice to rural women on land reform issues by, inter alia, conducting training workshops at district, village and local government level. Bridging analysis In order to provide human rights-based programming tools for one of the countries in this programme, Tajikistan, UNIFEM produced a ‘bridging analysis’ to demonstrate how human rights treaties could be used to respond to the violation of women’s rights to land (Sattherthwaite, nd). The analysis identifies four project-areas: • women’s right to land in the land reform process; • women’s rights and the family; • women’s access to credit; and • the impact of stereotypes, discriminatory customs and religious laws on women’s access to land and property. It provides a brief situation analysis for each of these areas and details how UNIFEM could use international human rights treaties to respond. This is done by identifying the Government of Tajikistan’s obligations with respect to women’s right to land under the treaties to which it is party, and then outlining the measures it should be taking to meet these obligations to provide possible programme entry points. Source: UNIFEM (nd a, b), Satterthwaite (nd). 109 Annex 7.3.5: CIDA’s human rights-based approach to child protection: from plan to action CIDA’s 2001 Action Plan on Child Protection explicitly adopts a human rights-based approach in the context of its work with children in need of protection from abuse, exploitation and discrimination. This approach uses the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) as its guiding framework and in particular the four fundamental principles set out in the CRC for interpreting its articles, namely: • the best interests of the child as a primary consideration in all actions concerning children; • the right to non-discrimination; • the right to life, survival and development; and • the right to participation. Within this framework, CIDA has established a strategic focus on child labour and children affected by armed conflict. In 2003 CIDA undertook a Mid-Term Review of its Action Plan on Child Protection (Rothman, 2003), which reported that capacity-building measures had been undertaken in line with the commitments in the Action Plan. These included the establishment of a Child Protection Unit within the Human Rights and Participation Division in CIDA’s policy branch, reflecting the emphasis on participation and human rights-based programming. This was supported by a Child Protection Advisors Group drawn from CIDA’s programming branches, whose mandate was to support the effective implementation of the Action Plan. The Action Plan has also led to more frequent and comprehensive child rights training, including an increased focus on human rights-based approaches, the establishment of a knowledge network and the publication of over 30 tools and resources. CIDA has also worked to raise awareness within Canada of children’s rights, mainly through the public engagement programme of Lt.-Gen. Roméo A. Dallaire, Special Advisor on War-Affected Children to CIDA and the Minister of International Cooperation until his recent appointment to the Senate. In terms of actual programming, the review found that the five child protection pilot projects were the ‘most tangible and visible manifestation of the effective implementation of the Action Plan’. All five of these have included strategies for the participation of children in decision-making throughout the project cycle. Whereas some of these projects were conceived of as rights-based from the outset, others were originally child protection or education projects and subsequent efforts were then made to make them consistent with a human rights-based approach, with a particular focus on child participation. CIDA is currently gathering and systematising the lessons learnt from these experimental pilots. In addition to the pilots, CIDA has also supported the participation of children in several major international conferences, in policy dialogue on issues such as national plans of action for children and in research. ‘Promoting and protecting the interests of children who work in Egypt’ pilot project One of CIDA’s findings from the review of two of its projects supporting small business development was that half of the businesses involved in these projects were relying on the labour of children. This led to the recognition that private sector development in Egypt often affects children and that the protection of children’s rights needed to become an issue of focus in this sector. However, it was also observed that child labour often benefited the children and their families. A project was therefore established to support working children by helping them to improve their learning and working conditions. The purpose of the project, which started in March 2002, is to empower girl and boy participants to identify labour hazards in their workplace and to design and deliver 110 interventions aimed at improving their working and learning conditions. The project is therefore participatory, seeking to foster local ownership. It is also innovative and has been developed through an iterative process of experimenting with different techniques and approaches. This process is being documented to facilitate lesson-learning, with the first three years producing the following results: • Project level: The project has been increased by a further three years in recognition that participatory approaches require more time and resources than traditional projects. • Sectoral level: The creation of a network of child workers to identify issues of common interest and facilitate access to services beyond the project has had the effect of increasing awareness and discussion about child labour amongst government, civil society and private sector stakeholders at the national level, and has led to the establishment of a school loan fund for families of working children. • National level: Although initially reserved about a human rights-based approach, the Egyptian Government asked to use this project as an example of the approach at a national conference and the National Council on Childhood and Motherhood has asked the project to advise on the development of a participatory, right-oriented national strategy for children. Another element of the Action Plan that was anchored in a human rights-based approach was the establishment of a Child Protection Research Fund, which was designed to provide evidence to support more relevant, inclusive and effective programming. Thirteen projects were funded at a cost of $2 million Cdn and the initial findings from these have demonstrated the importance of contextual research and analysis to human rights-based programming. The first project produced a landmark study, Where Are the Girls? Girls in Fighting Forces in Northern Uganda, Sierra Leone and Mozambique, which has been used by various UN agencies to train staff and develop standard operating procedures for demobilisation and reintegration programmes. Another project, involving research conducted by young people on the impact of a recent drought in tribal communities of Rajasthan, has led to changes in local government resource allocations for these communities. In the five years of the Action Plan, CIDA investments in child protection have more than quintupled, from $7.7 million in 2001 to $42.6 million in 2005, and the aim is to maintain the 2005 level in future years. The total investment of $171 million over five years exceeded the cumulative target of $122 million by 40%. However, the mid- term review indicated some disagreement amongst staff about how much of this increase in child protection programming could be attributed to the Action Plan. Also, whilst the absolute increase in child protection programming and its impact in terms of innovation and contribution to knowledge were significant, it continues to represent a relatively small proportion of total CIDA investments. Sources: CIDA (2001); Moosang (2005); Rothman (2003). 111 Annex 7.3.6: A review of minority rights policies and programmes In a paper submitted in 2003 to the UN Working Group on Minorities, MRG reviewed donor agencies support to minorities. It concluded that some good progress had been made by some agencies towards considering indigenous peoples in policy and programming. There had been much less work on other ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities because: • Minorities do not have a strong voice to articulate their needs in development. • Governments do not give enough attention to the situation of minorities, so these are not adequately reflected in poverty reduction strategies. • Agencies lack internal capacity to work on minority issues. The MRG report highlights the following good recent initiatives: • In the wake of the UN World Conference on Racism, UNDP commissioned a discussion paper from MRG to inform a new Policy Note, and identified the need for more programming. • SDC: in order to build staff capacity, SDC has agreed a three-year backstopping mandate with MRG which includes staff training and developing tools to assess the situation of minorities and promote their participation in SDC programming. • IADB: in 2001, the IADB adopted an Action Plan for Combating Social Exclusion Due to Race or Ethnic Background. It has sought to build its capacity to work on exclusion and racism, and has reached out to other agencies, such as the EC. • Sida’s Perspectives on Poverty document is one of the strongest examples of the systematic consideration of minorities in any donor agencies. Sida is a strong supporter of MRG and held a workshop on minorities in 2003 for Sida staff and partners. • Some agencies do not have explicit policy statements but still fund interventions, such as the European Commission through the EDHRI or DFID. MRG notes that minority issues are usually considered by donors as part of: poverty and social inclusion; human rights and governance; or conflict prevention. The approach is however not consistent. Its recommendations for building donor capacity include: • Greater dialogue between donors and minority representatives and development of institutional policies to mainstream minority rights and move from policy to practice. • Review of agencies' internal ability to respect non-discrimination and to ensure that aid is delivered in non-discriminatory ways, including through adequate monitoring mechanisms. Training and hiring minorities is one way of raising agencies' capacity and understanding. Programming options include: mapping minorities and legal frameworks; guidance to systematically include minorities in Country Strategies; targeted programmes using disaggregated data; enhancing accessibility of donor programmes by using minority languages and culture; adapting participatory processes to enable genuine participation by minorities; advocacy by agencies in support of minorities in their engagement with governments; or building and using minority capacity, such as of local businesses or NGOs in minority regions. Source: MRG International (2004). 112 Annex 7.3.7: A HRBA to water programming By demanding rigorous political and social analysis, a human rights-based approach to programme design and implementation can help to prevent interventions inadvertently reinforcing existing conflicts and power imbalances. Programmes that are not grounded in such analysis run the danger of not achieving their intended objective or of having unexpected outcomes In the Kileto District, Tanzania, WaterAid has been implementing a project to improve water access for residents. By integrating human rights principles into the programming process – in particular participation, non-discrimination, equality and empowerment – and including these as explicit programme goals, WaterAid was able to identify the underlying obstacles to equitable access to water. The participatory approach and analysis revealed that power imbalances, lack of land rights and exclusion from national policy decisions had resulted in two of the three main ethnic groups being excluded from access to water; the project was therefore able to work with the communities to overcome the inter-group conflict. This was achieved in the following ways: • Participatory methodology: Through involving each ethnic group in the analysis and assessment stage of the project, WaterAid was able to identify each group’s different water needs. • Understanding the social context: Participatory assessment and planning methodology enabled WaterAid to develop an understanding of the inter- and intra-group power relations. By bringing all stakeholders in the water project into the discussion, WaterAid was also able to improve understanding between each group. • Advocacy: In order to influence national policy and practices, WaterAid developed a coherent advocacy strategy in Tanzania, which included working with and training national government staff responsible for water services and policies. • Understanding the political and legal context: Through analysis of the political and legal context in which they were working, WaterAid was also able to understand how national policies and legal issues positively and negatively affected the access of these groups, including inequitable distribution of land, and subsequent lack of access to water because of a lack of knowledge of land rights and processes for application on the part of the least powerful. • Discussion with all stakeholders: To explore and understand these issues sufficiently, WaterAid found that considerable time and effort had to be invested in discussions with and between the Kileto partnership management team, field staff and project communities. • Partnership and capacity-building: To achieve genuine community management of water services, an important strategy was building partnerships with civil society organisations and training them in the planning and implementation of the programme so that they could achieve autonomy in the future. Source: Filmer-Wison and Anderson (2005); http://www.wateraid.org.uk/ in_depth/country_programmes/tanzania/1396.asp 113 Annex 7.4: Tools 7.4.1: Good practices in adopting a HRBA to CCA and UNDAFs This annex summarises the main findings of the 2004 review by William O’Neill of the UN system’s Common Country Assessments (CCAs) and UN Development Assistanec Frameworks (UNDAFs). The main findings are as follows: • There is increasing evidence of commitment to HRBA with a willingness to put it into practice. • Most CCA/UNDAFs explicitly state that human rights form the basis of their analysis and programmes. • Most also identify the international human rights treaties ratified by the country; some also note that national legislation conflicts with certain international obligations and must be changed; only a few refer to regional human rights treaties and mechanisms. • There is a more sophisticated analysis of the root causes of poverty, highlighting the pernicious effects poverty has on the ability to claim and enjoy rights. • Several CCA/UNDAFs do not hesitate to identify lack of political will, rather than lack of resources, expertise or knowledge, as the main impediment to greater enjoyment of human rights. This can lead to more frank exchanges with governments. • A more sophisticated approach to advocacy is evident, including the need to provide civil society with the information and skills to make demands on the state and to build alliances or partnerships with embassies, international financial institutions and regional organisations (e.g. for sensitive issues like racial discrimination and torture). • Data inadequacies and shortages are more readily and thoroughly identified, especially poor to non-existent disaggregation that could show discrimination and inequities. This is informing capacity-building initiatives. • The most important and widespread improvement in the CCA/UNDAFs is the thoroughness and clarity of the capacity analyses of both the duty-bearers and the rights-holders. Good discussions of weak state capacity to plan, budget, deliver and assess programmes involving basic public services like education, shelter and healthcare appears in the majority of CCA/UNDAFs reviewed. Likewise, many UNCTs dissect the inability of many beneficiaries to claim, advocate for and defend their rights and base programming on addressing this weakness. Strengthening various capacities at all levels – national, regional, local, state and civil society – for effective action to realise rights is a hallmark of the UN’s RBA. • There is a much more nuanced and sophisticated treatment of ‘participation’ seen as a key ingredient to enhancing the capacities of both the duty bearer and the rights holder and related to the ‘right to information’ and the obligation of the State to make core information available to its citizens. • Several CCAs identify the important role that local culture and traditions play in the enjoyment of rights. They note that much discrimination, especially towards women, begins at home and must be addressed there. The report considers that a continued weakness in the CCAs/UNDAFs is the ‘failure to exploit the rich vein of jurisprudence and commentary provided by the ever- 114 growing UN human rights treaty-monitoring/reporting system and the exciting work being done by a bevy of Special Rapporteurs and Working Groups on issues central to development like education, healthcare, shelter, poverty and violence against women.’ A number of suggestions are made as to how to strengthen the human rights system’s ability to make its findings accessible and relevant to development programming. Examples of good practice are provided in the box below. It notes that CCAs/UNDAFs could be improved by: • Having a dedicated, professional human rights officer responsible for insuring that all relevant findings, comments, recommendations and orders generated by the UN’s and regional human rights mechanisms are considered and included in the UNCT’s work. • Making OHCHR Country Profiles more readily available. These contain summaries and excerpts of relevant recommendations from Treaty Bodies and Special Rapporteurs/Independent Experts. • Use the Treaty Bodies’ recommendations and observations, along with those of Special Rapporteurs and the General Comments in designing new programmes. They are the baseline to be used for all future assessments of impact. A good example is how the UNCT in Uzbekistan, along with key embassies, uses the findings of the Special Rapporteur on Torture to design programmes to achieve practical, measurable results. • Providing training on CCA/UNDAFs before the CCA/UNDAF process begins. Such trainings need to emphasise the practical application of human rights jurisprudence in UN development programming and respond to the findings that the first generation of training package had too much of a theoretical, legalistic and academic content and not enough on how to apply international human rights law to real people with real development problems. • Avoiding a language that reverts to traditional concepts of assistance and filling needs. Programmes should be designed to fill the various capacity gaps and highlight how they will identify those accountable for meeting obligations. • Specifying more clearly the exact nature of the capacity gap for either the duty-bearers or the rights-holders (e.g. combination of a shortfall in resources – human, financial or logistical; lack of knowledge, expertise or know-how; failure of political will or interference/intimidation from the outside). • Having a more fluid understanding of duty-bearer and rights-holder, focusing more on the process and interaction between them, rather than the label. • Asserting more forcefully that responsibility entails accountability and identifying remedies for rights violations. The documents should show that governments, civil society and other ‘duty-bearers’ are the true owners and as such are accountable, while the UN ‘assists and supports them in meeting their responsibilities’. • Reviewing the existing accountability mechanisms and indicating how the UN can help states use these accountability mechanisms, by offering assistance to strengthen the state’s regulatory and oversight capacity, including judicial reform and access to justice. • Paying greater attention to all aspects of public finance, to inform greater public spending on children, women, rural populations, the disabled and other marginalised or excluded groups. This includes not only reviewing the proportions of national budgets spent on basic services (e.g. to assess whether it is reaching the 20/20 target), but also by analysing whether existing budget allocations actually support the requisite ‘duty-bearing’ so that the state can meet its key national priorities. Tools can draw on the principles of ‘maximum available resources’ and ‘progressive realisation’. 115  • Sharpen the understanding of how UN programmes address power relations in the host country: politically, in the society and even in the family. There should be a greater focus on and understanding of the primary actors essential to better enjoyment of human rights, and this includes non-State actors like parents, religious leaders, health professionals and teachers. • Anchor UNDAFs in the PRSP process and incorporate the MDGs as a way to ‘mainstream’ human rights since both are consistent with the state’s duties under international human rights law. • Highlighting the need for accurate and reliable data in many spheres (demographics, population, literacy, health indicators, government spending, budgets, trade figures, labour statistics). All this data must be properly disaggregrated to show any patterns of inequality or discrimination Examples of using treaty body recommendations in CCAs and UNDAFs Serbia and Montenegro CCA (2003) noted the readiness and commitment of the Government to assume its reporting responsibilities under the six core UN human rights treaties they acceded. While highlighting the actions taken by the Government to establish inter-ministerial committees to prepare overdue reports, it emphasised the importance of 'the extent to which the Government uses this as an opportunity to systematically review its legislation and practice against international standards' and 'the readiness of the Government to implement the recommendations of the treaty bodies when the reports are reviewed'. Guatemala CCA (2003) identified discrimination as the fundamental problem to tackle in order to address all other problems, based on the findings of the Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples. It also linked its analysis to the findings of other Special Rapporteurs who visited the country, including the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women who raised the alarm that there is a systematic tolerance of massive violence against women, regardless of the numerous treaties ratified by the government. CCA also refers to the findings of the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders who reported that defenders are specifically targeted in Guatemala and emphasised that without real freedom of expression and association and genuine participation, which are fundamental to economic development, no progress will be possible. Guatemala UNDAF identified the need to inject the issues of sustainable and equitable development and adherence to human rights into national policy debates as a top priority for UN action in the coming five years. Philippines CCA (2003) highlighted a key comment made by the Committee on the Rights of the Child on the country’s report concerning the Philippines’ failure to comply with international standards relating to juvenile justice, especially the use of incarceration to punish rather than rehabilitate. The Philippines CCA also identified certain traditional beliefs and practices that tolerate abuse and exploitation of children and cites the ILO Convention on the Prohibition and Immediate Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor (No. 182) as an important tool for government and private sector actors to end this scourge. The use of ILO Conventions in the analysis led to the identification of a variety of duty-bearers. Kyrgyzstan CCA (2003) identified that 'the rights guaranteed by international instruments are still to move off the page of official documents into people’s lives' and stated that 'human rights must be actually be enforced and not just talked about'. The CCA gives an example of a follow-up undertaken by the Government in response to the Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, by establishing the 'New Generation' initiative, a coordination committee with representation from relevant Ministries, NGOs and young people to implement policy changes and to coordinate fresh approaches for the realisation of child rights. Source: O’Neill (2004). 116 Annex 7.4.2: Using a rights-based approach to achieve the Maternal Mortality MDG In recognition of the centrality of women’s rights to making progress towards MDG 5 on maternal health, DFID commissioned in 2004 a desk review assessing the relevance of a rights-based approach to maternal mortality. DFID’s Ghana and Bangladesh country programmes were involved in piloting the work. This resulted, in 2005, in the production of a ‘how to’ note to provide guidance to DFID advisers and programme managers on how they can operationalise a RBA to maternal mortality in order to strengthen their analysis, policy and programming. The note recognises that a RBA adds value to technical or public-health responses to maternal mortality by directing attention to the underlying social and political relations that influence maternal health. However, it also recognises that further evidence and lesson learning is needed to increase understanding of the impact of adopting a RBA. Furthermore, it stresses the need for the practical application of a RBA to be grounded in the local context, including the type of language that is used, and that country-specific tools need to be developed to accompany this generic guidance. Reflecting DFID’s Target Strategy Paper on human rights, the note focuses on how a commitment to the principles of participation, inclusion and fulfilling obligation can strengthen analysis, planning and implementation. It identifies particular areas of work resulting from the application of a RBA to maternal health. Strengthening policy and political support for maternal health Political support for, and ownership of, the prioritisation of maternal health is essential and human rights can provide an entry point. They can be used in dialogue and advocacy to strengthening the commitment to maternal health in national development policies as a basis for the implementation of international human rights obligations. Applying a rights perspective to strengthening health systems A rights perspective focuses attention on inequality in the health sector and can provide a powerful advocacy tool for the reallocation of resources required to combat discrimination. It can also improve the quality of, as well as access to, health services by strengthening accountability and standards. Addressing inequality: universal coverage and the targeting of excluded groups The Nepal Safer Motherhood Project adopted an ‘all inclusive’ approach with the aim of saving the maximum number of women’s lives. In 2004, a study measuring the utilisation of emergency obstetric care (EmOC) found that the principal uses of services were high caste Brahmin/Chettri women. In one district, the rate of use per 1000 population was over four times greater for higher caste women then for all other women. This has called attention to the need to target resources so that lower caste and excluded ethnic groups can use EmOC services at the same rate as that attained by the Brahim/Chetrri women – both to save maximum lives and to be truly inclusive. The cost of providing services for the poorest and socially excluded will be higher than for the more accessible, high caste women. While this calls for difficult political choices, it may also allow informed defensible choices. It also highlights the need to monitor who benefits. 117 Increasing women’s entitlement and access It is important to increase women’s knowledge about their rights but this should be done in a context-specific manner and accompanied by support for social mobilisation and community-managed support systems if it is to have a positive impact on behaviour. Increasing state accountability for maternal health problems The law can be used to improve maternal health policy and practice at both the international and national level. Actors can engage with the international treaty monitoring bodies to encourage government compliance with their human rights obligations and, at national level, work with governments to ensure constitutional commitments are implemented and that legislation and policies are congruent with human rights standards and principles. Impact of abortion law on maternal mortality in Romania Legislation can save women from unsafe abortion. Restrictive abortion laws were passed in Romania in 1966. There was a dramatic rise in maternal mortality ratios, from around 80 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1964 to 180 in 1988. After the repeal of these laws in 1989, the maternal mortality ratio fell to around 40 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1992. This fall owed almost entirely to fewer deaths from abortion. Integrating a rights perspective into aid instruments Both government and civil society will need to be engaged to ensure the mix of aid instruments required to integrate a rights perspective into maternal mortality, including dialogue, budget support, NGO and multilateral funding. Source: DFID (2005b). 118 Annex 7.4.3: Culturally sensitive UNFPA health programming As a result of a review in 2002 of how its Country Offices were using right-based approaches, UNFPA realised that the scope of its activities varied between regions. Staff identified the perceived conflict with local culture or religion in some countries as a major obstacle to engaging with human rights. In order to respond to this challenge and support the mainstreaming of human rights throughout its programmes, UNFPA created a Gender, Culture and Human Rights Branch to undertake a review of within the organisation of culturally sensitive programming approaches and partnerships with religious and faith-based organisations to promote human rights standards. The review resulted in the 2004 publication, Culture Matters, which explores the contribution of culturally-sensitive approaches and partnerships with local power structures and institutions to the effective implementation of rights-based population and development programmes. Its findings include that: • Both constraints and entry points to rights-based programming resulting from socio-cultural structures cannot be underestimated. Serious engagements with cultural factors lead to more effective outcomes. • Collaboration with local power structures and institutions, including faith- based and religious organisations, is instrumental in neutralising resistance and creating local ownership of reproductive health and rights. Owing to the proliferation of members of such organisations throughout the public services – including political leaders, policy-makers, health professionals, teachers – engaging with them has meant that UNFPA has been able to mainstream reproductive health concerns and services into many of these networks. • Countries offices have needed to build strong in-house capacity to ‘manage diversity’ and bring together various organisations and interests. Their success has meant that they have been effective ‘facilitators’ of change in contexts where there were challenges around achieving ‘positive change’ on sensitive issues. The identification of, and support to, ‘local change actors’ has been central to this. • Participatory approaches must be adapted to the local context and engagement with leaders of local power structures and institutions may be necessary before involving grassroots communities in project design and implementation. • Projects that are likely to lead to cultural or religious controversy must be preceded by strong advocacy campaigns. • Culturally sensitive language is an invaluable negotiating and programming tool. • It is important to make clear the distinction between ‘cultures as broad ethnical and value systems’ and certain ‘traditional practices’ that are harmful in the individual and the community. • In Muslim contexts, using Islamic sources in advocacy campaigns has proved to be an effective strategy to facilitate project ownership. • Religious organisations were willing to partner UNFPA in a number of areas and partnerships were strengthened when it became clear that both sides working together addressed the needs and the rights of communities they both serve. • Building bridges between universal rights and local cultural and ethical values is a key strategy in providing the motivation to individuals and communities to understand universal rights standards and appreciate the need to practise, advocate and promote these rights. 119 The lessons that have been learnt and applied by UNFPA in the areas of reproductive rights and health could serve as the basis for culturally sensitive programming in other areas of human rights. Iran: The Literacy Movement Organisation Project The Reproductive Health/Family Life Education Advocacy project (known as the Literacy Movement Organisation Project) integrates population and reproductive health messages into literacy classes at all levels in the four provinces that the UNFPA Iran Country Programme operates in. The Literacy Movement Organisation is affiliated with the Ministry of Education and has around 50,000 instructors working throughout the country to provide a basic literacy programme. Messages that are disseminated within the programme include topics such as women’s empowerment and reproductive rights to male involvement and gender equity. UNFPA has provided support for the integration of population education into the Government of Iran’s literacy programme since 1992. The current project aims to provide advocacy on issues such as health, family life, gender equality, women’s empowerment and male participation and to mainstream selected reproductive health issues, including gender and women’s empowerment, into the literacy programme. The latter objective was achieved before the end of the project. Source: UNFPA (2004). 120 Annex 7.4.4: UNIFEM’s essential guide to results-based management using a HRBA Most practitioners are able to identify the ways in which human rights are relevant to particular areas of their work. It is far more challenging, however, to understand the implications of adopting a human rights-based approach for the entire programming cycle, which is what the approach demands. An excellent example of the type of tool that can be produced to facilitate this understanding is provided by UNIFEM ‘essential guide’ to results-based management based on a HRBA. As a result of the explicit adoption of a human rights-based approach in its main planning tool, the Multi-Year Funding Framework (MYFF) 2004-7, UNIFEM has been one of the first agencies to produce a guide to results-based management from a human rights perspective, that is, by developing and measuring results based on the difference they make to the ability of all women to realise their human rights. This new entry-level guide, which is supported by three online training modules, supports the capacity of UNIFEM staff to plan, implement, assess and report on their programmes using results-based management premised on a human rights perspective. A more detailed manual is also being prepared. UNIFEM’s MYFF establishes the broad framework of what the agency expects to achieve within the given timeframe and does this by providing a direct link between international human rights commitments – through international conventions and conferences – to UNIFEM’s everyday work. Programme outcomes and goals are explicitly tied to those identified in the MYFF, ensuring that they are measured by their success in furthering the realisation of women’s human rights. From the core principles of human rights-based approach to programming established in the UN Interagency Common Understanding, UNIFEM has identified supporting the capacity of rights holder and duty bearers as being a central focus of their results-based management system. It also highlights the use of CEDAW as the source of indicators, owing to the unique relationship. Crucially, UNIFEM recognises that adopting a human rights-based approach has implications for the way it works as well as what it actually does and thus advocates that, rather than being a technical exercise, results-based management should be empowering and embody the kinds of participatory planning and change that UNIFEM wants to see in society in general. Within this framework, the guide outlines how these considerations – capacity development, human rights standards and participatory processes – can be applied to the various stages of the programming cycle. • Context/situation analysis: What is the specific right to be furthered? Which capacity gaps on the part of both duty bearers and rights holders need to be filled? What baseline data is necessary? • Conceptualising expected results: What capacities are expected to change and in what timeframe? What processes are necessary to achieve the results? Who is accountable for the results? How is this represented in the programme logframe? • Developing rights-based indicators: How do we measure transformative change? How can we determine indicators that measure improvement in the capacity of duty bearers and rights holders to realise rights that accurately reflect an expected result? • Planning for monitoring: What is the role of the Performance Monitoring Framework? How does this relate to the baseline information identified in the context/situation analysis? How is progress towards capacity development monitored? 121  • Reporting results: How does reporting contribute to ensuring accountability for meeting objectives and to lesson-learning? Source: UNIFEM (2005). 122 Annex 7.4.5: NZAID’s comprehensive implementation plan NZAID’ ‘Human Rights Policy Implementation Plan of Action 2004/09’ sets out a process and timeframe to assist NZAID in integrating human rights into all aspects of its operations: its practices and organisational culture as well as policies, strategies and programming. It is focused on steps to be taken within the agency which will then enable NZAID’s policy to be reflected in its external activities. The Plan indicates activities and assigns responsibility to individuals and teams, with performance indicators. An implementation team comprised of senior management and staff from across the organisation meets monthly to review progress. The Implementation Plan recognises that integration is time and resource intensive, and that it will take several years to achieve. It proposes to review the human rights plan of action in its fifth year, to assess how well NZAID has effectively integrated human rights across the agency and identify areas that may require further attention. NZAID is also under an obligation to report to Ministers on the implications and longer term options of moving towards a ‘rights based approach to development’. Organisational capacity The Plan details actions to ensure that NZAID organisational systems, procedures and practices reflect and support the integration of human rights. In terms of organisational capacity, the aim is to ensure that NZAID has the capacity to identify whether, when, and how human rights are being integrated across the agency. Areas for action include: • Adequate resourcing to support integration of human rights, including by providing access to country specific information to staff on country-status related to human rights instruments to assist in programme discussions. • Data capture and accessibility by identifying and incorporating appropriate markers for a new agency database to allow/enhance monitoring and reporting of (a) issue-specific activity (b) issue-integrated activity supported by NZAID as well as monitoring the database when it is established, to see if markers and agreed procedures are being used effectively. • Cross agency learning, for example by developing effective mechanisms/processes to ensure regular exchange of learnings on implementation of human rights policy (e.g. programme information, experience and lessons) across NZAID (e.g. Friday Forums). • Training, including identifying, developing and implementing comprehensive initial, and ongoing, training programmes for NZAID staff in Wellington and at Post (covering human rights issues and principles; planning for implementation at agency, group and individual levels; and identifying expectations on all staff to implement policy). Organisational culture NZAID aims to transform its organisational culture so that the language, attitudes, and behaviours used within, and by, NZAID are consistent with human rights principles. This will be ensured by the internal application of human rights obligations and principles as part of NZAID’s Walking the Talk/Wananga process as well as by developing a process for responding to staff concerns about human rights abuses, within agency or in partner countries. Areas for action include: • Develop appropriate human rights specific questions for inclusion in all staff recruitment processes. • A requirement for appropriate level of understanding and awareness human rights issues and principles in all consultancy selection processes. 123  • Financial and management procedures by including human rights markers and other relevant information gathering requirements on Financial Approval ‘forms’. • Reviewing and revising contracting procedures and documents for coherence with human rights policy. • Communications, for example, requiring that NZAID overall communications strategy implementation plan specifically refers, where relevant, to human rights issues and principles. Source: NZAID (2004b). 124