Human Rights-Based Approach to Programming - UNFPA -

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Human Rights-Based Approach to Programming-
UNFPA -

• SESSION 8
• Advocating for a HRBA Challenges and
  Opportunities for UNFPA

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Session Overview

• UNFPAs advocacy role
• Advocacy strategies
• Obstacles and challenges
• Strategies for challenging contexts
• Importance of cultural sensitivity
• Conclusion

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UN Country Team Role

• information, education
• participation
• organization
• monitoring
• access to remedies
• (administrative, judicial)

• laws
• policies
• services
• data, monitoring
• remedies
  

fulfil duties
CSO
Capacity development
claim rights
duty-bearers
rights-holders
Information, participation, organization,
monitoring
advocacy
technical assistance
laws and policies
service delivery
UN-CT support
Source Action 2 CLP
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UNFPAs Advocacy Role

• What are the different ways in which UNFPA
  engages in advocacy?
• with governments, other duty-bearers?
• with individuals, civil society, other
  rights-holders?
• within the UNCT?
• at the international level?
• others?

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Strategies (1)

• Know where the government stands on various
  issues
• Know how advocacy and programme implementation
  might be most effectively carried out
• For example
• legislative reform may be required and
  legislative capacities may need to be
  strengthened
• policy reforms may be needed to combat
  discrimination and ensure consistency between
  macroeconomic and social policies and more
  equitable public policies

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Strategies (2)

• In order to devise and deliver effective
  advocacy, engage in environmental scanning
• Allows understanding of factors that create or
  constrain an enabling environment
• Analysis should consider overall legal, political
  and economic environment, and be sensitive to the
  critical role of local culture
• Remember An enabling environment entails
  building a human rights culture

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Obstacles and Challenges (1)

• Challenging contexts include places where there
  is
• Lack of political will to deal with issues seen
  as especially sensitive or controversial
• Overt resistance to the concepts and methods of
  human rights (including for ostensible cultural,
  religious or other reasons)
• Open political resistance to human rights

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Obstacles and Challenges (2)

• Challenging contexts include places where there
  is
• Lack of political commitment and/or weak capacity
  to develop and implement a HRBA
• Resistance to acknowledging certain populations,
  and therefore resistance to ensuring the human
  rights of those populations
• Cultural or religiously sanctioned subordination
  of women, and where negative attitudes towards
  women and stereotypes are deeply entrenched

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Obstacles and Challenges (3)

• Challenging contexts include places where there
  is
• Government that operates in a highly centralized
  manner, with limited public accountability
• Violent conflict, widespread poverty or extremely
  weak capacity, where basic survival or
  institution building is seen as a priority
• Generally weak governance or other significant
  structural and political barriers

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Strategies for Advocating in Challenging Contexts

• Work with culture
• Emphasize that a HRBA is synonymous with national
  ownership
• Show that human rights are not a foreign concept
• Demonstrate that you know the value of a HRBA
• Emphasize capacity development
• Do the best you can in each specific situation
• Be patient, and work progressively towards change
  

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Advancing ICPD Agenda and a HRBA Without Saying
Human Rights (1)

• Talk about the benefits of a HRBA, e.g.
• national ownership
• sustainable programmes
• capacity development
• engenders the trust of the citizenry
• improves long-term development outcomes
• uncovers root causes of development challenges
• use data to show disparities
• the focus on process
• 3AQs

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Advancing ICPD Agenda and a HRBA Without Saying
Human Rights(2)

• Refer to nationally entrenched rights in
  constitutions and domestic legal standards
• Reassure governments that you can help them meet
  their international commitments
• Share UNFPAs own efforts to ensure
  accountability, participation, etc.
• Change terminology
• reproductive health or healthy families may
  be less controversial than family planning or
  reproductive rights
• Build development around the strengths and
  interests of the people involved

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Importance of Cultural Sensitivity

• Cultural or religious traditions and practices
  can be in opposition to UNFPAs efforts
• Working to change behaviours and attitudes is
  extremely time-consuming with limited immediate
  obvious impact
• Incremental changes are possible and may be more
  enduring in the long run. This is the reason why
  UNFPA promotes a culturally sensitive HRBA
• Essential to design and implement programmes that
  work from within a culture

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Conclusion

• Integrating human rights into development
  assistance is not simply a technical matter
  resolved by adequate training or better tools and
  procedures
• In addition to knowledge of what a HRBA means in
  practice, it requires negotiation with
  governments, consensus-building, and adapting to
  potentially difficult and unfriendly contexts