2011 has been a momentous year in the movement to place human rights at the center of development.
When UN Women launched in February, the new agency set out to eliminate discrimination and empower women, ensuring that they too are a part of and receive the benefits from development. The 25th anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to Development offered a poignant moment for reflection on how human rights can better inform national and international economic policy and address systemic injustices during this critical time. The Global Strategy on Women and Children???s Health meanwhile set a precedent by setting out an accountability framework for accelerating progress on Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5. And with regard to the post-2015 agenda, this year has kick-started a flurry of discussions on what a successor agreement should look like, building on the lessons learnt from the MDG experience over the last decade.
But perhaps the most significant events the year has been witness to are not what happened in intergovernmental forums, but rather the extraordinary mass mobilizations as civil society movements around the world took to the streets. Whether they be the democratic winds of change embodied in the Arab Spring, the ???Occupy??? movements demanding economic justice, European protests against austerity measures, or the anti-corruption campaigns in India, ordinary people are sending a clear message to governments that the status quo will not be tolerated. It is time for a new deal. Civil society voices have been claiming their rights and calling for the kind of world they want post-2015. Human rights should be placed at the center of any new development framework, in terms of both content and the process of creating it. So will world leaders listen?
The Center for Economic and Social Rights advocates for three key issues to be incorporated into the new global development architecture:
Firstly, the failure of existing MDG strategies to narrow disparities in target indicators shows that the international community must make a more vigorous commitment to ending inequality everywhere - in both rich and developing countries alike. Secondly, any future framework must reflect the changed landscape since the MDGs were first adopted, including address the factors fuelling the global economic, food and environmental crises. The post-2015 development agenda must address these systemic injustices head-on, and human rights can provide the ethical framework needed for this end. Lastly, no framework can deliver sustainable and equitable progress if it does not ensure effective mechanisms for monitoring, accountability and meaningful participation. Unfortunately, the MDGs have been seriously undermined by a lack of accountability for non-fulfillment. What little accountability there has been???in the form of annual reviews and monitoring of indicators???has focused overwhelmingly on the responsibilities of recipient states to donors and the international community, rather than on governments??? duties to their own people.
But with crisis comes the opportunity for change, and now more than ever it rings true that people need to be put back at the center of development. The human rights framework can - and should - lead the way. CESR??s activities over the past years have sought to mainstream human rights into development processes. Most recently this year, we embarked on a project in partnership with the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights entitled The MDGs: Who???s accountable which will culminate in a forthcoming advocacy publication aimed at influencing the post-2015 agenda.