Participatory Strategies for Human

Rights Policy Making

Ramona Ortega
Overview of Tools and Concepts
 Paradigm Shift
 Using Human Rights Development Index (HDI)
 Human Rights Budgeting
 Gender Budgeting
 Participatory Budgeting
 Using the Millennium Development Reports MDG’s)
 Human Rights Concepts & Right to the City
 Human Rights Documentation
Shifting Paradigm to Outcomes
 Shifting our understanding of Poverty and Human
Development (capacity)**
 Moving from program demands to policy demands
to get the desired outcome
 Formulating demands and agendas based on
standards, benchmarks, and long-term goals
 Human Rights language and standards create rights
and obligations (on governments-including
municipalities)

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ESCR Obligations
 Indices allow one to evaluate progress specifically by
applying the normative framework of human rights
principles and standards.
 Provides a means to measure state conduct with respect to
obligations to respect, promote and fulfill human rights, with
particular consideration for the obligation of progressive
realization subject to maximum available resources.
 Development policies are designed to achieve specific
goals, so how those goals are defined has profound
implications for the types of policies pursued.
 Development goals [human, community, regional] should
always be conceptualized from a rights based approach]

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Duty Bearer and Obligations
The existence of a defined duty bearer allows greater
clarity regarding who is responsible for promoting ESRs,
and thus attention can be paid not only to what must be
done, but also to who is obligated to do it.
At the core of the human rights framework is the idea of
the duty-bearer
State governments have the duty to protect, promote,
and fulfill the human rights of citizens and residents
(Denizens)

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Concepts of the Human Right to
Development and the Right to the City
Human Right to socially fair and
environmentally balanced use of urban space 30+ year
and land, the right to participate in history
preparation of the municipal budget and in
urban capital gains (gentrification), and the outcome
right to move and circulate in the city, and the of the first
right to remain in the city and not be expelled World
from it.
Social
People must be treated as ends in themselves and not merely as Forum
means to an end: the fundamental rights of one person cannot be
sacrificed to improve the condition of another.

A human rights frameworks still allows for trade-offs, as discussed

below, but the trade-offs cannot (a) involve discrimination, or (b)
require a person to give-up his/her fundamental human rights to
benefit someone else.

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Essential Services and Good Governance
Towards an international declaration of the right of access to basic services

 Charter of Essential Services, South Africa, 2002,

 Access to those services is primarily a governance issue
 Access to Basic Services- 10 Years of Actions
 Participatory Management
 SUD = Sustainable Urban Development = Social,
Environment, Economy = Governance

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Local Development and Local Development Planning
Local development seen as both a concept as well as a process

Development • Naming goals and objective of local development

Plan

• Naming partners
Participation • Creating a participatory process

Value of • using the 4 ‘A’s-Scheme’

Human Rights

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Poverty
 Poverty as multidimensional phenomenon characterised by
lasting or chronic shortage of resources, abilities, choices,
security and powers required for an adequate standard
of living and attainment of other civil, economic, political
and cultural rights.

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Human Development Index (measuring
Well Being
 HD is about the freedom to have the opportunity to be, to
do and to live how they want (expanded opportunities and
choices)
 Capabilities = what people can do and what they can
become
 Opportunity is shaped by factors within and beyond ones
control and include institutional factors
 Of the top ranked countries in the HDI, the US has gone
from 2nd in 1980 to 12th in 2005
 Not doing well transforming Wealth into positive health and
education outcomes
 Mainly caused by racial disparities

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 Creating a Local HDI
Social/Economic Floor Ceiling Local Indicator Non- Bearer of
Right Discrimination Obligation
Health
Education
Food
Health
Housing
Decent Work

Objective: To be able to create a local index of human rights standards from which
to hold local governments accountable.
Activity: In small groups, each group will discuss the right, the obligation, and the
indicator of fulfillment of the right (the floor & ceiling) and assess the extent the
right is being fulfilled with regards to non-discrimination and which entity is the right
bearer of the obligation.
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Specific Standards to Measure a Quality
Education
 As defined by General Comment No. 13 of the United Nations
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (the body in charge
of monitoring the implementation of the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the States which are party to it)
 Education is both a human right in itself and an indispensable means of
realizing other human rights.
 As an empowerment right, education is the primary vehicle by which
economically and socially marginalized adults and children can lift
themselves out of poverty and obtain the means to participate fully in
their communities.
 Education has a vital role in empowering women, safeguarding children
from exploitative and hazardous labour and sexual exploitation,
promoting human rights and democracy, protecting the environment, and
controlling population growth. Increasingly, education is recognized as
one of the best financial investments States can make.
 Right to Education for persons in detention

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Specific Standards to Measure a Quality
Education in Your Community
 Moving Beyond the Right -- Measuring Implementation
and Violations
 Human rights obligations: making education a)
availability; b) accessibility; c) acceptability; and
d) adaptability
 http://www.right-to-education.org/
 http://www.right-to-
education.org/sites/r2e.gn.apc.org/files/B6g%20Prim
er.pdf

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Human Rights Documentation
 Participatory Process
If discrimination is not
 Those affected are central to fully exposed, it
the process cannot be effectively
 Subjective (not neutral)
opposed.
 People centered
 Violations are often clear
 Qualitative and Quantitative
 Capturing & Exposing Data

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Useful Documents
 International Labour Organization unanimously
adopted the ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a
Fair Globalization on 10 June 2008.
 General Comment No. 14:Right to the Highest
Attainable Standard of Health (Art. 12)
 The right to education (Art.13)
 General Comment No. 12:The Right to Adequate Food
(Art. 11)
 http://www.measureofamerica.org/mississippi/

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