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The Human Rights Based Approach to Development
The human rights approach to development is one that is simultaneously:
- a tool for analysis which focuses attention on the underlying inequalities and discrimination faced by people living in poverty and social isolation, which impede their development and deny them the opportunity to raise themselves out of poverty
- a foundation for a people-centred approach to development, based on a coherent framework of binding legal norms and accountability
- a process which is holistic, participatory, inclusive, and multi-sectoral, and
- an outcome - the empowerment of individuals to achieve their full potential, and the freedom to take up opportunities.
In summary, a human rights approach to development is one which:
- puts people first and promotes human-centred development
- stresses liberty, equality and empowerment
- recognises the inherent dignity of every human being without distinction
- recognises and promotes equality between women and men, between minority and majority
- promotes equal opportunities and choices for all so that everyone can develop their unique potential and have a chance to contribute to development and society
- promotes national and international systems based on economic equity, equitable access to public resources, and social justice
- promotes mutual respect between peoples as a basis for justice and conflict prevention and resolution.
Many grassroots organisations have long been using human rights to challenge the economic and social injustice they face, particularly indigenous peoples, women’s groups, children’s advocates, and the disability movement. It is an approach that is increasingly being adopted by UN agencies, bi-lateral donors, and development NGOs. It is an approach that is likely to be welcomed by Southern partners, many of whom have long been advocating for greater attention to be paid to economic, social and cultural rights, and to the implementation of the right to development.
Adopting a human rights approach to water and sanitation would force us to ask specific questions about access, such as which individuals within communities have disadvantaged or no access to those services which are provided? And, why do certain communities not have access to any services? Such an approach would identify the plight of people with disabilities unable to collect their own water or access public sanitation facilities. It would highlight the problems facing the elderly, particularly widowers and widows. It will also point to the fact that poor people who have lost their families, whether through conflict or natural disaster, are particularly vulnerable in urban areas where they may be unable to rely on the kind of community support more usual in rural areas.
We believe that water and sanitation make a vital contribution to poverty elimination. Although human rights and development theories have had different roots, over the last decade there has been a gradual convergence of analysis. The human rights community speaks of all rights as being indivisible. They are inter-related. A lack of water and sanitation clearly has an impact on the enjoyment of other human rights, such as the rights to education, health and work, which form such an essential basis for poverty elimination and human development.
There is an emerging international consensus on the issues of water management including agreement that:
- Water is key to development
- Water is a key social and economic resource for any nation
- The right to water must be protected for equity as well as sustainable development
- Water is key to improved health, improved nutrition and quality of live
- The private – public partnership is essential for development of the water resources
- Community based management is essential to conserve, properly utilise and develop water resources
- Sustainable water resource development is possible only through an integrated approach to soil, water, forest and livestock.
(Source: Integrated Water Resource Management: A Rights-based Community Approach Towards Sustainable Development by Gourisanka Ghosh and Sadig Rasheed, 1998.)
This final point of sustainability is also important in the context of protecting the rights of future generations to sustainability of the world’s water resources and to inherit a clean and healthy environment.
Finally, it is increasingly being recognised that water and sanitation management requires effective government at the national and local levels. Issues of good governance - which are traditionally perceived as part of the human rights agenda - are therefore particularly pertinent to the water sector. These include the necessity for transparency, the elimination of corruption, and a strengthening of democratic participation at all levels of national and municipal government.
Value Added of Using the Right to Water and Sanitation as a Basis for Advocacy
Some of the arguments for utilising the right to water as a basis for advocacy work include:
- “To pave the way for translating this right into specific national and international legal obligations and responsibilities
- To make the state of water management all over the world a focus of attention
- To cause the identification of minimum water requirements and allocations for all individuals, communities and nations, which will in turn help to focus attention on resolutions of international watershed disputes and conflicts over the use of shared water
- To help set priorities for water policy so that to satisfy the right to water, meeting the basic water requirement for all humans, would take precedence over other water management and investment decisions (Gleick 1999)
- To catalyse international agreement on the issue
- To emphasise governments’ obligations to ensure access as well as their obligations to provide international and national support towards efforts to give and protect access to clean water (Jolly 1998, quoted in Gleick, op.cit)”.
It is essential that far attention is given to ensuring enjoyment of the right of everyone to access to water and sanitation, and that a far higher proportion of national and international resources are put to this effect. In our common attempts to create the political will to make this a reality, a partnership between the human rights community and the water sector would provide a firm foundation for renewed commitment and action.
The adoption of the human rights approach to development with its emphasis on social sector investment and a pro-poor priority is likely in the longer term to lead to more sustainable development - both human and economic and to contribute to the prevention of conflict. A human rights approach to water and sanitation provides the legal framework and ethical and moral imperative of ensuring universal access and equity. Ensuring enjoyment of human rights is not optional; governments are under a legal obligation to take action to ensure that every man, woman and child has access to the requirements of life in accordance with their human rights and dignity. This obligation can be used in advocacy to strengthen the political will and resource allocation necessary.
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