CESR???s Sally-Anne Way and Shira Stanton recently attended a two day NGO working group meeting on 18-19 January 2010 to discuss how to take forward the Draft Guiding Principles on Human Rights and Extreme Poverty (DGP). The objective of these principles is to provide special guidance on the actions needed to be taken by governments in order to ensure that the human rights of people living in extreme poverty are respected, protected and fulfilled.
The NGO meeting is part of a larger process around the DGP. The Human Rights Council has asked the UN???s Independent Expert on Human Rights and Extreme Poverty, Magdalena Sepulveda, to produce a revised version of the Guiding Principles, which were originally drafted in 2006, for the HRC 15th Session in September 2010. The Independent Expert Sepulveda has argued ???The DGP have the potential to be a strong tool to be used by governments in the design, implementation and evaluation of programmes and policies targeting people living in poverty and a useful lobbying tool for civil society organisations to encourage States to fully realise the rights of extremely poor persons.???
Civil society participation will be critical to the drafting of these guiding principles, to ensure that the DGP does address the very specific obstacles faced by people living in extreme poverty and identifies the special measures that are needed for the protection of their human rights. For more information on how to get involved, contact us.