THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
MARINA PONTI, UN MILLENNIUM CAMPAIGN WWW.ENDPOVERTY2015.ORG
The Millennium Development Goals and human rights share a common objective: to preserve and protect human dignity. It is for this reason that there are extensive direct linkages between human rights provisions and the MDGs. For example, Goal 1 encompasses the right to adequate standard of living; the right to social security; the right to work and the right to food.
Beyond the direct links, there are significant complementarities between the MDGs and human rights obligations. On one side, the human rights can lend authority to the MDGs. In return, as political commitments made at the highest level, the MDGs provide high profile political processes through which human rights can be progressively realized. Moreover, the political commitments encompassed by the MDGs and the legal obligations resulting from human rights treaties both provide tools for holding governments to account.
However, human rights have not played a significant role in supporting and influencing MDG-related activities. The MDGs have been pursued largely in isolation from the human rights commitments in the original Millennium Declaration. Some voices have criticized the MDGs themselves, questioning whether human rights standards have been lowered and sufficient attention has been paid to women and marginalized groups and national and global inequalities. At the same time, just like development benefits, the realization of human rights remains out of reach for the poor and excluded people. The harsh reality is that in spite of the best human rights norms and laws, mass poverty and deprivation continue to plague the world.
The different nature of the two sets of standard can be a source of strength.
How the MDGs can reinforce the achievement of human rights:
- The MDGs provide an opportunity to raise awareness about the urgency of eliminating poverty; which thereby gives renewed and greater attention to the violation of economic and social rights.
- The MDGs provide benchmarks for measuring the progressive realization of human rights. The Goals can provide specificity to the concept of progressive realization for some of economic, social and cultural rights. However, if that MDGs target is not adapted to national circumstances, it may not match an appropriate human rights benchmark. In the case of MDG 5, the focus on maternal mortality arguably increased the attention given to obstetric care in work on the right to health.
- Despite the legally binding nature of human rights, they are frequently violated, particularly where judicial and governance systems do not provide adequate protection for people. Thus political processes are usually critical in claiming and realizing human rights.
- The national and international efforts around the MDGs have led to the mobilization of resources for and within developing countries that can be applied to implement the Goals and ensure progressive realization of human rights.
Example of the use of MDG
to realize human rights
India: on December 13th 2006, the Supreme
Court of India passed an order requiring
the allocation of state and central
government funding for supplementary nutrition
for children, severely malnourished
children, pregnant women, nursing mothers
and adolescent girls. In passing this
order, the Supreme Court repeatedly referred
to a report highlighting the low probability
of India meeting the MDGs in hunger,
and specifically the low likelihood of halving
the share of underweight children and
halving the proportion of population below
a minimum consumption level.
The challenge in such circumstances is to
effectively incorporate a human rights approach
into MDG related processes. Human
rights provide the context and lens through
which the Goals are to be viewed. The MDGs
should not be about welfare or charity, but about implementing rights and entitlements,
based on recognition of the structural and underlying
causes of poverty.
Given the complementarities between human rights and the MDGs, the human rights approach has the potential to considerably enhance development programmes and policies aimed at achievement of the Goals. The human rights based approach to development fundamentally sees poverty as a result of disempowerment and exclusion. Poverty is not simply a lack of material goods and opportunities such as employment, ownership and productive assets and savings. It is also the lack of physical and social goods such as health, physical integrity, freedom from fear and violence, social belonging, cultural identity, organizational capacity, the ability to exert political influence, and the ability to live in respect and dignity.
We can adapt this human rights approach to the MDGs by suggesting four key elements:
1. Align the Goals and nationally defined priorities with human rights
In the spirit of the Millennium Declaration, and in the implementation process, the UN has encouraged
countries to adapt each Goal. States are also encouraged to introduce additional targets
or even goals at the national and local level to better address human rights. In the case of
Mongolia, additional legislation was actually passed to create MDG 9 on democratic governance
and human right with specific time-bound targets and indicators. Additional targets could be
adopted to ensure that the MDGs will reach certain marginalized and disadvantage groups.
Free basic education in Kenya
Free basic education became a political issue in the 2003 national elections following several
years of sustained campaigning by Elimu Yetu, a civil society pressure group. Elimu Yetu
led a campaign called “Basic Needs as Basic Rights”. In particular, it campaigned for free
schooling by highlighting that education was a fundamental right. In its first week of power
in December 2003, the new Kenyan government made education free, immediately giving hundreds
of thousands of children the opportunity to go to primary school. However, despite some
additional donor support, many poorer areas such as informal settlements and rural region
have no access to free public schools and continue to have to pay fees in private schools.
2. Be transformational not technocratic
Human rights are fundamentally concerned with empowerment which can be understood
as an expansion of people’s ability to participate in, negotiate with, influence, control and
hold accountable institutions that affect their lives. This requires recognition that people are
the prime agents of development and need to be part of transformation of the structures and
overcoming the obstacles that have created and contributed to poverty.
A voice in the budget process: Brazil
Many municipalities in Brazil are using participatory budgeting, outside the realm of elected
officials. The approach originated in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1989. At the beginning of each
year, neighbourhood assemblies set budget priorities and elect 44 members to a Council of
Participatory Budgeting that negotiates with the Local Authority. Budget allocations are then
made by combining“subjective preferences of citizens with the objective quantitative criteria”.
After a decade, 40000 residents participated in this process with home water supply
rising from 78 to 99%; sewage collection from 46 to almost 83% and garbage collection
reaching all residences.
3. Prioritize rights within policy choices and resource allocation
Although policies and programmes to realize MDGs may have been devised with good intentions,
they have the potential to violate human rights if not carefully designed. Building
a large dam may assist with MDGs target on water and providing wage employment, but such
action can violate the right to work housing and food of farmers, pastoralists and decrease
biodiversity. Therefore, a principle of “do not harm” is crucial in operationalizing the MDGs.
Chile
Chile was one of the first countries to privatize
its social security system, with benefits
based on individual contributions. In
2004, the UN Committee on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights expressed concern
that the new system did not meet a
number of human rights standards. It did
not guarantee adequate social security for
a large segment of the population, particularly
those working in the informal economy
or could not make sufficient contributions.
The majority of women (including
40% working women) did not contribute
to the scheme and were therefore not entitled
to old-age benefits. The Committee
recommended that the Chile take effective
measures to ensure that all workers be entitled
to adequate social security benefits.
4.Claim the MDGs
Most successful attempts at holding powerful
actors to account have involved a wide
range of methods. While States are the primary
duty-bearer under human rights law,
other duty-bearer such as corporations,
donors and intergovernmental organizations
must be answerable for the observance of
human rights. Human rights standards call for
the establishment of accessible and effective
judicial mechanisms of redress that can deliver
on entitlements, respond to violations
and ensure accountability. Non judicial
means of accountability are also crucial. This
includes mediators, treaty bodies, parliamentary
processes, national human rights
institutions, civil society networking and mobilization,
media advocacy, and local mechanisms
such as watch-dog groups.
