13 April 2006 - Rights CRINMAIL 22
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UN: Frequently Asked Questions on a Human Rights Based Approach to Development [publication]
UN DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME: Indicators for Human Rights Based Approaches to Development Programming [guide]
SOUTH EAST ASIA: Capacity Building in Children’s Participation [publication]
FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND BELIEF: An Essential Human Right [training]
MONITORING CHILD RIGHTS: A Toolkit for Community-Based Organisations [resource]
CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD: Theory Meets Practice [conference]
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Rights CRINMAIL is a component of a project of the Child Rights Information Network (CRIN). It is published monthly with the purpose of informing and building the community of practitioners in rights-based programming. Your submissions are welcome. To contribute, email us at[email protected].
Adobe Acrobat is required for viewing some of the documents, and if required can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com
If you do not receive this email in html format, you will not be able to see some hyperlinks in the text. At the end of each item we have therefore provided a full URL linking to a web page where further information is available.
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UN: Frequently Asked Questions on a Human Rights Based Approach to Development [publication]
This resource, published by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, offers an introduction to the main features of rights based approaches to programming, and a useful guide to incorporating rights based approaches into development work. The publication includes a preface by Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights:
“At the dawn of the new millennium, human rights and development are at a crossroads. On the one hand, the congruence between human rights and development theory has never been more striking. Poverty and inequities between and within countries are now the gravest human rights concerns that we face. As the Secretary-General underscored in his 2005 reform report “In larger freedom”, the challenges of human rights, development and security are so closely entwined that none can be tackled effectively in isolation.
United Nations agencies have gone a considerable way towards reflecting these realities in practice, including through defining a common understanding of a human rights based approach to development cooperation, embodied within the United Nations common programming guidelines. And at the World Summit in September 2005, United Nations Member States gave an unprecedented political imprimatur and impetus to the Organisation’s efforts to bring human rights to the front and centre of all its work, a shared commitment that through my 2005 “Plan of action” I am determined to support.
Yet there remains a chasm between theory and practice, ensuring that the objectives, policies and processes of development are channelled more directly and effectively towards human rights goals. There are, of course, many reasons why this is so, including continuing gaps in knowledge and skills, and difficulties in translating human rights norms into concrete programming guidance applicable in diverse policy contexts and national circumstances. This is the principal gap that this publication aims to fill, with United Nations development practitioners as the primary audience.
A collective and multifaceted effort is required of human rights and development practitioners, now more so than ever. Filling gaps in knowledge, skills and capacities will be meaningless without renewed leadership, commitment and attention to our own internal accountability systems and incentive structures. The valuable contributions brought to this publication from our United Nations development partners are testimony to the kind of collaboration that should be further encouraged.
While a modest contribution on its own, I hope that this publication will succeed in advancing our shared understanding about how the goals of human rights and development can be achieved through more effective development cooperation, within wider strategies and coalitions for change.”
For more information, contact:
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations Office at Geneva, 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Website: http://www.ohchr.org
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=7794&flag=report
More information
Read CRIN’s Guide to rights-based approaches to development programming
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UN DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME: Indicators for Human Rights Based Approaches to Development Programming [guide]
This is a practically oriented Guide on indicators for human rights based approaches to development programmes for UNDP Country Offices (COs).
The guide specifies four critical areas for using indicators:
(i) Understanding the human rights situation at the country level through the identification and use of indicators that can be used to provide an assessment of the baseline human rights situation.
(ii) Understanding the capacities of individuals and groups as ‘rights holders’ to claim their rights as well as the capacities of state institutions as ‘duty bearers’ to promote and protect human rights on the ground.
(iii) Identifying and using indicators for ensuring the incorporation of human rights principles in the design, implementation and monitoring of UNDP programmes.
(iv) Identifying and using indicators to determine the likely impact of programmes on furthering human rights in the country.
The Guide contains separate sections on different aspects relating to the development and use of indicators across the key elements of human rights programming. It summarises the normative evolution in human rights and explains how human rights have been mainstreamed into the activities of all UN agencies. The Guide reviews the main existing indicators for human rights and discusses their limitations for human rights based programming. Two hypothetical programme examples on access to clean water and the prevention of torture are used to show how indicators can be used.
For more information, contact:
Alexandra Wilde
Governance Specialist
UNDP Oslo Governance Centre,
United Nations Development Programme
Borrgata 2B, N-0650 Oslo, Norway
Tel: (47) 23 06 08 24; Fax: (47) 23 06 08 21
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.undp.org/oslocentre
Visit: http://www.crin.org/hrbap/index.asp?action=theme.infoitem&item=7894
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SOUTH EAST ASIA: Capacity Building in Children’s Participation [publication]
Save the Children Sweden recently released a publication on capacity building in children’s participation. Creating an Enabling Environment contains the outcome of an overall documentation and assessment of capacity building in children’s participation during 2000-2004 which examined the quality and cost effectiveness of inputs, processes, outputs and outcomes, making recommendations about future work in children’s participation in Viet Nam and the South East Asia and Pacific (SEAP) region.
In 2000, Save the Children Sweden (SCS) conducted an exploratory assessment in Viet Nam on the understanding of children’s participation among its staff, partners, and other agencies, as well as the level of children’s participation. The report of the 2000 assessment acknowledged that further skills were needed to involve children in programming.
As part of a larger capacity-building process, training was recommended to enhance skills and knowledge of staff and partners of SCS in Viet Nam and the SEAP region. Opportunities were created for the involvement of children, through pilot projects relating children-friendly learning environments in schools and a children-friendly district in Ho Chi Minh City. National forums were organised where children could discuss and share their experiences about issues affecting their lives.
All this work aimed to contribute to creating an enabling environment for children’s participation, providing opportunities for children to participate and ensuring that adults have the knowledge and skills to facilitate children’s involvement.
The text of this report is divided into six chapters. The first two introductory chapters examine the largely documentary information about the context in which the capacity-building programme took place, with attention to the approach taken to participation by the Government of Viet Nam over time, and the response of SCS in Viet Nam. The third chapter describes the research process, in which three embedded research projects took place using a common protocol and core set of research tools. This chapter also describes the methods used and their limitations, as well as the types and numbers of research participants.
Chapters 4 and 5 describe and analyse the research data, using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, comparing and contrasting the data collected from different groups and using different tools. The final chapter turns to a deeper analysis of what the data mean and makes recommendations both for the practice of children’s participation and for future SCS programming in Viet Nam.
For more information, contact:
Henk van Beers, Advisor on children’s participation
Save the Children Sweden - South East Asia Pacific Regional Office
14th Floor, Maneeya Centre South Building, 518/5 Ploenchit Road
Bangkok 10330, Thailand
Tel: + 66 2 684 1046
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.scswedenseap.org
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=7781
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FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND BELIEF: An Essential Human Right [training]
This video/drama training manual has been produced by the International Association for Freedom of Religion in cooperation with the People's Movement for Human Rights Education.
The present international order does not assure the full realisation of human rights. Many people in today’s world are denied the fundamental right to freedom of religion and belief.
This learning-action programme is an attempt to deracinate the intolerance in which these conflicts and the wide-spread denial of religious freedom are cultivated. Human rights learning is a response informed by a belief that human beings can learn to live constructively with human differences among then differences in religion and belief.
Greater understanding of the real and significant human differences and recognition of universal and constant human commonalities, illuminated within a framework of the values and principles of human rights is essential to the realisation of freedom of religion and belief. Human rights learning is a major means to the achievement of a social order characterised by religious tolerance, respect for diversity and personal autonomy in matters of faith and conscience within or outside the context of formal religious belief and practice. Such a social order as that aspired to in Article 28 of the UDHR.
For more information, contact:
The People's Movement for Human Rights Learning (PDHRE) / NY Office
211 East 43rd Street, Suite 1104, New York, NY 10017, USA
Tel: +1 212 749 3156; Fax: +1 212 666 6325
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.pdhre.org/
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=7949&flag=report
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MONITORING CHILD RIGHTS: A Toolkit for Community-Based Organisations [resource]
This toolkit has been designed for community leaders, children’s rights advocates and staff of child-serving and child-led institutions and agencies to help mobilise and coordinate resources in communities to develop effective monitoring practices for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The toolkit may also be useful to children’s rights advocates who are working regionally, nationally and internationally.
For more information, contact:
Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children
36, Quarry Ridge Street, Orleans, Ontario, Canada K1C 7S1
Tel: + 1 613 729 5289 ext. 224
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.rightsofchildren.ca
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=7792&flag=report
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CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD: Theory Meets Practice [conference]
Date: 18 - 19 May 2006
Location: Ghent, Belgium
An International Interdisciplinary Conference on Children's Rights, which is organised by the Belgian Interuniversity Attraction Poles Interdisciplinary Research Network on Children's Rights, will be held in Ghent, Belgium on 18 - 19 May 2006.
The conference aims to evaluate the progress and achievements brought about by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and to explore the challenges ahead in realising children's rights. It will provide an open forum where academics and practitioners can meet and exchange views.
The event will include addresses by speakers from various disciplines and attract a heterogeneous group of participants from around the world. It will comprise both plenary sessions and workshops.
Major topics of the conference include:
(1) enforcement of the UNCRC at international, regional and domestic level,
(2) the right to (human rights) education,
(3) rights of children in especially difficult circumstances such as refugee
children and children belonging to minorities,
(4) juvenile justice and detention,
(5) participation rights of children,
(6) children's right to life, health and health care,
(7) children's rights in relation to their family, and
(8) exploitation of children.
For more information, contact:
Marie Delplace, Ghent University
Department of Constitutional Law
Human Rights Centre
Universiteitstraat 4, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium
Tel: + 32 9 264 68 22; Fax: + 32 9 264 69 95
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.law.ugent.be/pub/iuap
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=5449&flag=event
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