Rights-Based Approaches and Human Rights Impact Assessment

1
Rights-Based Approaches and Human Rights Impact
Assessment

• Mainstreaming and Indicators,
• HOM 23-24 November 2006

2
Three Problems to be Analysed

• Does RBA enhance the chances of better HRIA?
• What are the methodologies of human rights
  mainstreaming in country analysis and in
  programming? Will RBA lead to mainstreaming?
• What promises does the progress in HR indicator
  formulation entail?

3
Overview Main Headings

• Defining RBA
• What is the main problem with respect to HR
  Integration of donors (and foreign policy
  agencies)?
• Distinguishing RBA from HRIA
• Donor considerations mainstreaming HR/developing
  HR Indicators
• REflections about HRIA
• HR Indicators
• Where are we landing?

4
Main problems of Donor and (Foreign Policy) HR
Integration

• Uncertainty of HR mainstreaming prevails in dev
  assistance
• A potentially competing agenda aid effectiveness
  ? more interest in good governance than in HR
• HRBA may provide new inspiration, but does it
  deliver? A re-politization of aid maybe.. But for
  whom? The UN, INGOs or LONGOs. Main test the
  actual benefits for poor or marginalized people

5
What is a Rights-Based Approach?

• OHCHR
• Normative basis in HR
• Operational directed towards promotion and
  protection
• Inequalities lie at the heart of developmental
  problems
• Redress discriminatory practices
• Transform unjust distributions of power that
  impede development

6
Distinguishing RBA and HRIA

• RBA represents an approach to programming and to
  strategies of development
• HRIA is an approach to ex ante assessment and
  evaluation intending to assess implications of
  interventions
• ? HRIA can be informed by RBA thinking inasmuch
  as RBA will define particular components of
  intervention (e.g., duty-bearer accountability,
  rights-holder claims etc.).
• ?The OHCHR emphasis on inequality and
  non-discrimination may also inspire development
  of indicators in these fields

7
Three General Problems of RBA

• Do donors endorse RBA?
• What are the alternatives to RBA?
• What is the value added?

8
Five Options of Human Rights Integration(Followin
g L-H Piron)
HR-Based Approaches HR Main- streaming HR Dialogue HR Projects Implicit HR Work
HRConstituti-ve of dev goal, Leading to a new approach to aid Efforts to integrated HR Into all sectors of interventions FOreign policy and aid dialogues include HR, sometimes conditionalities Projects and programmes targeted at the realisation of specific rights or supporting civil society Agencies may not explicitly work on HR and prefer to use other descriptors eg Good Govern.
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Three Options Model
Ad Hoc HR Integration Mainstreaming Using HR Principles Human Rights-Based Approach
Typically, gender rights and childrens rights Participation, non-discrimination and equal treatment, duty-bearer accountability, legal redress Use rights principles and legal obligations to further the claims of rights-holders and strengthen the accountability of duty-bearers for addressing structural barriers to poverty and oppression
10
Reflections about HRIA

• One caveat of complexity The levels of Analysis
• Country analysis
• Programme and project analysis
• At the country level, impact analysis is complex
  unless impact is reduced to a measurable target
• At the programme, project level, impact analysis
  is more easy

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The Value Added of HRIA

• 1. A focus on risks
• Complicity in HR Violations,
• Risks of Partners Compromising their safety
• 2. A focus on context vs operational goals
• 3. A focus on indicators
• 4. A focus on Monitoring Results

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Indicators What are the problems?

• Major advance OHCHR Report on Compliance
• Structure, Process and Outcome Indicators
• Major trend Indicators transformed into targets
• A question lurking Are HR Indicators distinct?

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How are Indicators formulated?
Theories
Concepts/Goals/Rights
Specification/ Attribute
Indicators
Targets
Data
14
Indicators and Targets
Indicators Target
Mali PRSP Incidence of poverty Pct pop with access to Health facilities within 5 km 2006 47.5 50
Danida Agric Programme Dev obj. Standard of living of the target pop sustainably improved Proportion of population below 1 per day 10 by 2030
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Implications of Targeting

• Whatever the indicator the quantified measures
  count
• Who defines the target?
• Benchmarking becomes vital
• Causes less so
• Institutional and organization dimensions might
  become underplayed

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Final Observations

• The impact of RBA thinking is as yet uncertain
• The donor emphasis on effectiveness of aid may
  imply less attention to HR mainstreaming
• HR indicators Progress in terms of determining
  indicators of compliance
• Measuring duty-bearer efforts (measuring conduct)
  still warranted
• Existing trend of quantified targets may ensure
  more systematic use of indicators, but less
  clarification of substance