Choose from the following; * Poverty is a Violation of Human Rights * A Human Rights Approach to Development
There is a growing convergence between human rights and development discourses and practice. This trend derives from increasing concern that economic development has not achieved its promise to elevate people from poverty. Rather, that market driven development has led to rising inequalities within and between nations with an estimated 1.2 billion people living under conditions of extreme poverty. A human rights approach to development entails a recognition that human beings possess certain inherent dignity which must be assured and maintained as the overriding goal of every development activity. International human rights law is the only agreed international framework that offers a coherent body of principles and practical meaning for development. This framework provides the tools to better analyse poverty through a focus on the status of each specific right in a given country, to draft appropriate strategies for improving the status of the rights and set clear benchmarks for their realization. Human rights can also help transform the economic, social and political power relationships and structures at the local, national, and international levels. A human rights approach to development requires:
International development agencies have almost universally focused their mission statements on poverty reduction. The evolution of the concept of poverty reduction strategy papers that commit governments in collaboration with civil society to formulate plans to reduce poverty has provided human rights defenders with opportunities to integrate human rights in development goals. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has produced a set of guidelines on the integration of human rights in poverty reduction strategies. This has been accompanied with pressure on the international financial institutions to consider the relationship between human rights and development (see Sigrun Skogly, The Human Rights Obligations of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.)
Additional resources on this topic are:
The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights defines poverty as a human condition characterized by sustained or chronic deprivation of the resources, capabilities, choices, security and power necessary for the enjoyment of an adequate standard of living and other civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights. Poverty has been and remains a constructed social and economic reality. The poor are not poor simply because they are less human or because they are physiologically or mentally inferior to others whose conditions are better off. On the contrary, their poverty is often a direct or indirect consequence of society’s failure to establish equity and fairness as the basis of its social and economic relations.
Conventionally, extreme poverty is measured against the World Bank standard of living off of US$1 per day or less. Based on this parameter, in 1998, over 800 million people were living in extreme poverty in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa alone (Para. 8, Human Rights and Extreme Poverty, Report submitted by Ms. A.-M. Lizin, Independent Expert, pursuant to Commission Resolution 2000/12, E/CN.4/2001/54. 16 Feb. 2001). Among the most blighted subgroups are extremely poor children and women. Worldwide, nearly 8 million children die from diseases caused by dirty water or poisoned air each year, 150 million children under five years of age are gravely malnourished, with another 260 million suffering from maladies such as anemia that are associated with vitamin and mineral deficiencies. In addition, there are 250 million child laborers worldwide. Women comprise 70 percent of those living in absolute poverty. Over one billion people are estimated to lack access to a basic water supply, and roughly 2.4 billion people live without adequate sanitation. 790 million people worldwide suffer from undernourishment. According to the World Bank, globally, 9 in 100 boys and 14 in 100 girls of school age do not attend to primary school.
Poverty is indisputably the most potent violation of all human rights, and constitutes a threat to the survival of the greatest numbers of the human population. As poverty has intensified in both rich and poor nations alike, the view of poverty as a human rights and social justice issue has gained increased recognition. The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has resolved that extreme poverty and exclusion from society constituted a violation of human dignity (General Assembly Resolution 53/146 on Human Rights and Extreme Poverty adopted December 18, 1992).
The historical emphasis on C&P rights over ESC rights helped to reinforce a view of poverty as an extra-human right category consigned to be addressed by market forces, the development process or fate contrary to the proclamation by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) that the enjoyment of freedom of speech and belief, freedom from fear and want is the highest aspiration of all people.
A rights-based approach to poverty views the poor as holding inalienable, fundamental rights that must be respected, protected and fulfilled. Noting this, the U.N. General Assembly has recognized that surmounting extreme poverty constitutes an essential means to the full enjoyment of political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights.
National strategies for poverty reduction suggested by the United Nations Independent Expert on Human Rights and Extreme Poverty include:
Some initial resources available for ESC rights defenders that are relevant to poverty eradication are:
The following case studies and summaries illustrate how human rights defenders have used the ESC rights approach to campaign for the eradication of poverty: