Integrating Human Rights in Programming

Kaselehlie maing ko colleagues.

Thank you for your time, effort and the great energy that you brought to this briefing and refresher training. I extend a special thank you to our presenters from the UNEP Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, the ILO Office for the Pacific and the OHCHR South-East Asia Office for sharing your experience with us.  I thank the organisers, OHCHR’s Pacific Regional Office, as chair of the Human Rights Theme Group. 

This initiative is an example of a more ‘joined-up’ and One UN partnership approach to knowledge and information sharing on human rights mainstreaming in programming, and the way that we work with, and engage, staff from across our MCOs.

I would like to draw on a few takeaway points from the presentations and discussions. 

In his opening, Dirk highlighted to keep in mind who we are programming for and the frame that we use. Who we programme for and interact with in countries are not passive beneficiaries and numbers. They are also not a homogenous group. 

We programme for people who are rights-holders. Some of them are also duty bearers. Jointly, as partners, we need to ‘put people at the front and centre of our work’: to listen to people’s stories, their different and diverse experiences and disaggregate data to zoom in on multiple disparities and discrimination.  A HRBA to development requires us to base all of our interventions on this premise, for the impact that we seek. 

Right now, this week and as we implement our current programmes and develop new ones, the SIDS 4 conference is underway and its outcome document, the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS (ABAS), the next 10-year programme will soon become a key reference point. In the context of the triple planetary crisis and the challenges that Pacific SIDS face, intensifying a focus on economic, social and environmental rights to address vulnerabilities, shocks and resilience in the Pacific will be critical to achieving concrete results and meaningful action. 

The importance of leveraging resources and a human rights-based approach to macroeconomics and the environment supports the development of interventions that address the linkages and inter-connectedness of issues that are required to achieve the SDGs.   

Partnerships are a dimension of the 2030 Agenda, and we heard in the briefing that a joint programme is a cooperation strategy.   Please keep in mind, as we implement existing joint programmes and design new ones, effective joint programming and leadership requires a solid foundation of values and principles. 

We are applying the HRBA which is a conceptual framework to implement principles, and a technical/programming tool within a set of partnerships.  We have established ones within the UN system, with other international agencies and with Government, Non-State actors and the private sector and we will create new relationships and build on them. 

Here in the Pacific, the UN and the Secretary-General of PIFS have recently signed the new Pacific Principles of Engagement and Dialogue between the United Nations and the Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific (CROP) agencies.  I would like to recall here that these Principles oblige us all – when we engage with regional CROP agencies – to apply a human rights-based approach.  Every effort should be made to build and sustain this engagement. 

Our programming occurs in our Pacific regional space, and we must make efforts to dismantle structural and institutional barriers and address challenges to achieving human rights outcomes in PICs. 

OHCHR spoke about the programming cycle and the need for stringent human rights analysis at the outset to base our interventions on and guide our action. If we do not comprehensively and realistically consider the context and situation – of factors around discrimination, impunity, limited accountability and human rights violations, a deeply entrenched societal patriarchal environment and limited civic space for example – and programme with this in mind, our ability to target right-holders and duty bearers for the protection of Pacific peoples’ human rights is decreased.

It is clear that consistently programming with a HRBA adds value to our analysis and efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda.  Sometimes, programmes are developed based on a strong human rights analysis but it is at the implementation and M&E stage where the real challenges are seen. My advice is to reflect on challenges, opportunities, intended and unintended outcomes, and extend the motivation regularly and actively, keeping in mind our goal of human rights integration that was present at the design stage through every step of the programming cycle.  

I encourage you to work together to raise the standard of our programming goals and expectations and to ensure that human rights guides process and substance. At the opening of this briefing, Dirk also asked you several questions about how you can advance a HRBA to programming in your work and what you need to do this. Where do we go from here? 

As programming staff and members of our UN Pacific Cooperation Framework structures, I urge you to:

• Advocate for political will and resources for human rights. In doing so, advocate for a HRBA to programming in your agencies and individual work and push for the organizational, institutional and cultural change that is needed to do this. Human rights is not a single agency issue or topic of interest. 

   

• Ensure that a HRBA is reflected at the national level and for country planning in your programming processes and these principles and approaches are translated into outcomes and are backed with the necessary resources – financial and technical. 

   

• Consider how you allocate resourcesin programming and national budgeting from a human rights lens. How much money and other investment is dedicated to advancing human rights? Is this sufficient to arrive at mainstreamed human rights focused national outcomes across different sectors? 

   

• Ensure that there are sufficient and adequate data. To check that results frameworks and their indicators are qualitatively sufficient to inform programming and really drive a ‘leaving no one behind approach’ in practice.

   

• Raise your voice if there are human rights issues and dimensions that are not being adequately addressed or there is a need to course correct. As rights holders and with a view to promoting participation and to improve your programmes’ impact, you can exercise this in your work. 

As we consider our standards, let’s not settle for the minimum level of human rights mainstreaming in our programming documents. 

Let’s strive for: extensive and visible transformative human rights-based outcomes in national development plans, policies and initiatives. Outcomes that focus on long-term change to root causes that are blocking human rights progress

Let’s strive for inclusive processes and a whole of society approach. 

Let’s strive for strong partnerships that are based on a respect for human rights. 

And finally, if you are in Suva, I encourage you to participate in the upcoming HRTG’s in-person workshop from 16-17 July 

Gladly, I have been advised that a similar course will be brought to Micronesia in the not-too-distant future.

Kalahngan, Thank you.