Key Messages

• Human development and democratic governance projects should incorporate a HRBA at the front-end of those projects (planning and budget allocations).
• Effective NHRI engagement can promote and implement a HRBA to development issues, such as: the justiciability of ESC rights, the achievement of MDGs, poverty reduction strategies, budgetary analysis and monitoring, along with public administration reform such as decentralisation.
• NHRIs can be engaged through: advocacy and awareness-raising, training and capacity-building, partnership-building, practice development and knowledge networking.
• Investigating and monitoring existing laws, administrative acts, and draft bills to ensure accordance with ICESCR requirements should be fundamental to NHRI activities. Additionally, NHRIs should research the status of ESC rights and promote educational resources that raise awareness with respect to those rights within the general public and the private and public sectors.
• MDGs are helpful targets that can be used by NHRIs as starting points for programming choices, especially those linked to ‘minimum core obligations’ in ESC rights.
• NHRIs should rely on the support of UNCTs particularly in relation to managing constraints that NHRIs face in the strategic planning processes. For instance, NHRIs should take advantage of the qualifications of UNCT staff to strengthen their ability to review and report on the realisation of MDGs in every country.
• NHRIs need not change their structures fundamentally, since NHRIs can incorporate MDGs into their existing work on gender equality, for example, due to already-present connections between the two.
• NHRIs should focus on important international documents on cultural rights to work with local social and cultural leaders to help eradicate harmful and marginalising practices. UNCTs can be a useful resource by providing guidance to particular documents.
• Strategic planning can help to strike a balance between the UNCTs’ role of reminding NHRIs of the normative framework in which they operate, and the imposition of UNCTs’ priorities, which have been identified and agreed to with national partners in accordance with the principle of national ownership.
• NHRIs can be involved in PRSPs to provide a human rights perspective, by becoming involved with PRSP development, implementation, and intervention where necessary.
• NHRIs should also advocate for a rights-based approach to national budgets according to the States’ obligations to take ‘all appropriate measures’ to ‘the maximum of available resources’. This will allow for the possibility of reviewing the budgetary allocations toward human rights initiatives that will support development.
• Public administration reform, such as decentralization can provide important opportunities for NHRIs to become involved in awareness-raising, training of local decision-makers on HRBA to development, and collaborative work with local institutions to ensure funds are directed towards the most vulnerable groups.