Written evidence submitted by Amnesty
International UK
SUMMARY
Amnesty International believes that human rights
must be put at the heart of the MDGs. The Millennium Declaration
promised to strive for the protection and promotion of civil,
political, economic, social and cultural rights for all. However,
the MDGs are largely silent on human rights and the targets they
set are in some cases less than what states are already obligated
to do under international law.
The UN MDGs Review Summit has in many ways failed
to remedy this omission. Negotiations on the Outcome Document
demonstrated that governments still view their development commitments
as disconnected from their obligations under international human
rights law. They have in doing so, failed to uphold human rights.
Amnesty International contends that the Review
Summit failed to address the issue of human rights in a number
of particular ways: through failing to make the MDGs consistent
with human rights and through failing on discrimination, national
targets, participation and accountability. Key steps must be taken
by governments and by bilateral and multilateral donors in these
areas if efforts to achieve the MDGs are to reach the poorest
and most disadvantaged.
Welcome emphasis has been placed on women's
rights. Gender equality and the empowerment of women is recognised
as important for the achievement of the MDGs.
The UN Secretary-General's "Global Strategy
for Women's and Children's Health" is a concrete outcome
of the Review Summit. While welcoming this Strategy, Amnesty International
highlights the lack of systematic integration of human rights
of women and children within it. Developing countries and donors
should address gender discrimination in law, policy and practice,
including in relation to women's sexual and reproductive rights.
A new or revised global framework post 2015
must give attention to the need to reflect states' existing obligations
under human rights law. Any such framework must be based on, and
consistent with, human rights standards. People living in poverty
must be enabled to participate meaningfully in MDGs planning,
implementation and monitoring at all levels; and equal participation
by women in these processes must be ensured.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
1. Amnesty International is a worldwide
movement of people who campaign for internationally recognised
human rights to be respected and protected. Our vision is of a
world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined
in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international
human rights standards. In pursuit of this vision, Amnesty International's
mission is to undertake research and action focused on preventing
and ending abuses of these rights.
INTRODUCTION
2. On 20-22 September 2010, world leaders
gathered at the United Nations in New York for a Review Summit
of progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs). Drawn from the Millennium Declaration adopted 10 years
ago by all UN members states, the MDGs represent commitment, at
the highest political level, to translate the high hopes and ambitions
of the Millennium Declaration into real improvements in the lives
of people living in poverty.
3. The MDGs have played a pivotal role in
helping to concentrate international attention on issues of development
and poverty reduction. They have also provided a focal point for
civil society which has mobilised nationally and internationally
around the MDGs to challenge poverty and exclusion. However, the
extent to which they reflect and help advance the promise of the
Millennium Declaration remains uncertain. Progress has been uneven
and the UN issued a clear warning prior to the Review Summit that
many of the global targets will not be met by 2015 unless efforts
to achieve them are radically stepped up.
4. Amnesty International believes that human
rights standards—and the duty of governments to fulfil them—must
be put at the heart of efforts to achieve the MDGs. The Millennium
Declaration promised to strive for the protection and promotion
of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights for
all. States' obligations under international human rights law
are however, not adequately reflected in the MDGs; indeed the
MDGs are largely silent on human rights—including economic,
social and cultural rights—and the targets they set are
in some cases less than what states are already obligated to do
under international law.
5. In this short submission Amnesty International
UK aims to highlight how MDG efforts following the UN Review Summit
in September 2010 and the implementation of the action agenda
for achieving the MDGs by 2015, agreed in the outcome document,
must be consistent with states' obligations to respect and promote
human rights—including economic, social and cultural rights.
OUTCOMES FROM
THE UN REVIEW
SUMMIT IN
SEPTEMBER 2010
6. The Outcome document acknowledged the
link between human rights and development, including the need
for more efforts to reduce inequality and tackle exclusion and
discrimination, the promotion of universal access to public and
social services and references to the importance of the rights
to education, health and food. However, the Summit's Action Agenda
did not make a necessary and explicit commitment to ensuring that
all MDG efforts are consistent with human rights obligations.
It did not identify the concrete steps that governments are to
take to address discrimination, exclusion, and the specific barriers
many groups face in accessing basic services, despite evidence
that this is why the poorest people in the world are being left
out of progress on the MDGs. It also did not commit to identifying
effective national and international accountability mechanisms
to ensure that all MDG efforts are consistent with human rights
standards. In doing so, the Review failed to make concrete commitments
in terms of policies, programmes and actions to address some of
the root causes of lack of progress and to ensure that their efforts
across all the MDGs do not leave out the poorest and most marginalised.
Non-discrimination
7. International human rights law requires
all states to guarantee equality and non-discrimination. Grounds
include gender, race, caste, ethnicity, disability and Indigenous
status. The MDGs contain no explicit requirement for states to
comprehensively identify and redress exclusion and discrimination
however, despite the fact that discrimination is closely linked
to poverty. This failure to address discrimination is reflected
not only in the actual goals and targets, but also in the MDG
planning, monitoring and reporting framework.
8. The Review Summit failed to remedy this
shortcoming. While the Outcome document recognised the need for
more efforts to reduce inequality and tackle exclusion and discrimination,
it does not identify concrete steps that governments will take
to address discrimination, exclusion and the specific barriers
many groups face in accessing basic services. The Outcome document
contains some welcome but limited measures to reduce inequality,
such as use of reliable and disaggregated data. However, there
are no commitments to specific actions needed to address the forms
of discrimination faced by, among others, Indigenous Peoples which
often prevent them from having access to public programmes and
services. Measures to address this would include the adoption
of specific national targets for groups facing discrimination
and developing appropriate indicators to monitor progress towards
these objectives.
National targets
9. International human rights law requires
that minimum essential levels of economic, social and cultural
rights for all people in all countries must be provided for. Yet
whilst the MDGs establish global targets, these were not developed
based on an assessment of countries' levels of progress or the
resources available to them and may set the bar too low for some
countries and lower than that required by international human
rights law.
10. The Review Summit failed to remedy this
shortcoming. The Action Agenda of the Outcome document makes reference
to the importance of the rights to education, health and food,
but does not commit governments to set and implement time-bound
national targets to realise the rights to food, education, health,
housing, water, work and sanitation, taking into account existing
levels of progress and resources available.
11. As a result, the global targets set
can be considered arbitrary benchmarks in many contexts. In some
cases, countries have adopted national targets above the MDG level;
Latin American countries, for example, have decided to expand
their MDG commitments on education to include secondary education.
On the whole however, the setting of global targets serves to
give a distorted picture of progress. For example, the MDGs aim
to halve the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day
between 1990 and 2015; this target will probably be achieved on
the basis of progress in only two countries, China and India,
as a result of policies that predate the MDGs.
Participation
12. The UN Committee on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights has stressed that the right to participation
must be an integral part of government policies, programming and
strategies. In order for participation to be meaningful, states
must also fulfil a number of other rights and duties, including
the rights to freedom of expression and association and the duty
to ensure the conditions in which human rights defenders can carry
out their work. The current MDG framework does not explicitly
recognise the right to participate actively and meaningfully.
As a result, people living in poverty are rarely involved in developing,
implementing or monitoring efforts to meet the MDGs.
13. The Outcome document of the Review Summit
recognises that full participation of all segments of society,
including the poor and disadvantaged, can help achieve the MDGs.
However, the Action Agenda does not address the need to ensure
freedom of expression, association and assembly and there is no
reference to the right to information and to the need to promote
and protect the rights of human rights defenders.
14. Indigenous Peoples, for example, are
amongst those commonly excluded from decision-making around development
processes. Indigenous Peoples' input is commonly not included
in national MDG monitoring and reporting. Mechanisms are also
commonly lacking through which to ensure the input and participation
of Indigenous Peoples in the design, implementation and monitoring
of policies designed to achieve the MDGs. Though the Review Summit
did recognise the need to respect the rights of Indigenous Peoples,
it did not identify the actions governments would take to do so.
This is despite evidence that Indigenous Peoples are disproportionately
represented amongst people living in poverty, their levels of
access to health and education are well below national averages
and they are especially vulnerable to the consequences of environmental
degradation.
Accountability
15. International human rights law provides
for national and international accountability mechanisms. These
apply human rights standards which can strengthen MDG efforts
by giving people living in poverty, and civil society acting on
their behalf, greater opportunities to hold governments to account.
With the exception of women's rights, there is no reference to
specific accountability mechanisms to ensure enforcement of human
rights in national and international MDG efforts.
16. The two accountability mechanisms which
the Outcome document instructs to monitor progress on the MDGs
are themselves inadequate; the ECOSOC Development Cooperation
Forum and the Annual Ministerial Review have been identified as
bodies which will monitor progress on the MDGs. They are ill-equipped
to monitor compliance with states' human rights obligations and
are voluntary, rather than mandatory processes. Similarly, an
annual review process provided by the General Assembly is unlikely
to incorporate a human rights focus.
17. Amnesty International's research in
Burkina Faso highlights the importance of accountability. The
government's policy to provide subsidised health care for pregnant
women has been undermined by illegal charges demanded by hospitals.
Women faced with such charges did not have anywhere to lodge their
complaints. There is a lack of mechanisms—either within
the hospital, via a medical regulatory body or through the courts—to
ensure accountability. Such mechanisms would help enhance the
delivery of the government's policies and programmes and empower
women and their families to claim what they are entitled to under
such policies.
GENDER AND
WOMEN'S
RIGHTS
18. The Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) condemns discrimination
against women and dictates that signatories pursue a policy of
eliminating discrimination. Action in all spheres—political,
social, economic and cultural—is called for in order to
ensure the full development and advancement of women and to ensure
their exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms
on the basis of equality with men. Unfortunately, the MDGs do
not reflect this commitment to realise the full range of women's
human rights. Gender equality and women's empowerment feature
very poorly in the MDGs as a whole, and gender sensitive targets
and indicators are both limited and inadequate.
19. The Outcome document and Agenda for
Action placed emphasis on gender equality and women's human rights,
and reference existing commitments to women's rights. This emphasis
is apparent in the Outcome document which recognises that gender
equality and empowerment of women are important for the achievement
of the MDGs and welcomes the establishment of UN Women. It commits
to addressing gender discrimination and to taking action to improve
women's participation in political and economic decision-making
processes; also to strengthening national laws and enhancing accountability
to address all forms of violence against women and girls. In addition,
it includes welcome references to improving national capacity
to monitor and report on progress through use of sex—and
age-disaggregated data; and to enhancing the impact of development
assistance in advancing gender equality and empowerment of women
and girls through capacity-building and gender mainstreaming.
20. However, the Action Agenda did not set
out concrete actions that governments must take to address gender
inequality and discrimination—in law, policy and practice—across
all the MDGs.
21. Particular attention has been paid amongst
others, to MDG 5, the MDG target on improving maternal health.
This remains the most off-track, despite the fact that most deaths
in pregnancy and childbirth are preventable. The number of women
dying due to complications during pregnancy and childbirth is
358,000 a year; a drop of less than half of that needed to achieve
the MDG target of reducing maternal mortality by 75% between 1990
and 2015. Governments are not addressing many of the root causes
of why women are dying or being injured during childbirth and
pregnancy. These include early marriage, denial of sexual and
reproductive rights and services to women, and discrimination.
As estimated 68,000 women die each year from unsafe abortion but
some governments are criminalising all forms of abortions.
22. The UN Secretary-General's "Global
Strategy for Women's and Children's Health", with pledges
and commitments of over $40 billion dollars in funding over the
next five years, was one of the concrete outcomes of the Review
Summit. This reflects the consensus on the need for a coordinated
and joint effort by the international community to deliver vital
healthcare services for women and children, who continue to face
the greatest barriers in realising their right to health. While
welcoming this Strategy, Amnesty International highlights the
lack of systematic integration of the human rights of women and
children within it. Many women, particularly women living in poverty,
continue to face a range of barriers (financial, legal, social
and other) to accessing the healthcare services they need. Difficulties
in accessing services are closely linked to state failure to guarantee
non-discrimination, equal access to care, and other dimensions
of the human rights to life and health. The global strategy does
not adequately reflect this reality.
23. Amnesty International also highlights
the need to specifically address key human rights issues that
contribute to women dying in pregnancy and childbirth—such
as the denial of sexual and reproductive rights, gender discrimination
and inequality, gender-based violence (including sexual violence);
all of which must be addressed in the context of efforts to prevent
maternal deaths.
24. For example, the issue of unsafe abortion
is left largely unaddressed, despite it being a leading cause
of maternal deaths, especially among young women. The criminalisation
of abortion and the devastating consequences for women and girls
is also not addressed in the Global Strategy.
25. Additional initiatives have also been
launched including an alliance to support reproductive, maternal
and newborn health of USAID, DFID, AusAid and the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation; and by the UK Government directly, with a pledge
to saving the lives of at least 50,000 women in pregnancy and
childbirth by 2015. More details are awaited on both of these.
THE ROLE
OF DFID, DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES, MULTILATERAL
DEVELOPMENT AGENCIES
AND INTERNATIONAL
FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS
26. Amnesty International believes that
there are key steps that must be taken by governments and by bilateral
and multilateral donors, to ensure equitable progress on the MDGs
and to ensure that MDG efforts reach the poorest and most disadvantaged
people. DFID, other donors, developing countries, multilateral
agencies and international financial institutions should ensure
that their national and international policies, strategies and
programmes aimed at reaching and surpassing the MDG targets are
consistent with universally recognised human rights standards—including
those on economic, social and cultural rights.
27. Human rights standards provide a legal
and policy framework that should underpin the analysis of the
problem, the process for addressing the problem and the intended
outcomes of development policy and practice.
28. In the next five years leading up to
2015, DFID and its partner countries in the developing world,
as well as multilateral institutions—including the European
Commission, the World Bank and UN agencies—should take the
following steps going forward:
Ensure that their MDG efforts are consistent with
human rights standards
29. Consistency with human rights standards
requires at the state level a review of national policies and
strategies for achieving the MDGs to reflect human rights obligations—including
in relation to economic, social and cultural rights. It also requires
states to identify and abolish discriminatory laws and practices
and ensuring that governments do not violate human rights, including
economic, social and cultural rights. For example, Amnesty International
and other NGOs have documented the mass forced evictions of people
living in slums and informal settlements, where governments destroy
homes and livelihoods, often with little or no notice and due
process, and without offering alternatives, with devastating consequences
for the affected communities, most of which were already living
in poverty.
30. For bilateral and multilateral donors
and institutions, this requires their policies and strategies
to be consistent with, and guided by, human rights standards,
in line with the commitment in the Accra Agenda for Action that:
"Developing countries and donors will ensure that their respective
development policies and programmes are designed and implemented
in ways consistent with their agreed international commitments
on gender equality, human rights, disability and environmental
sustainability."[5]
This requires them to explicitly recognise and integrate human
rights standards in development assistance policies and programmes
to ensure that assistance does not result in or contribute to
a negative human rights impact, and that there are adequate safeguards,
monitoring and accountability mechanisms to ensure that development
assistance complies with human rights standards.
Fight exclusion and discrimination
31. While the MDG framework does not include
an explicit requirement for states to comprehensively identify
and address exclusion and discrimination, tackling these is key
to achieving progress on the MDGs. Human rights standards require
all states, in national and international efforts, to take necessary
measures to end discrimination, to guarantee gender equality and
to prioritize the most marginalised groups in policies and strategies
to tackle poverty and exclusion. Tackling gender inequality and
discrimination—in law, policy and practice—should
be included in efforts across all the MDGs and not restricted
to MDG 3.
32. Likewise, DFID and its development partners
should work together to ensure that their efforts towards all
the MDGs address all forms of discrimination—including gender
discrimination—and give adequate priority to particularly
marginalised groups.
Set and implement national targets for progress
33. The MDG targets were intended to be
adapted to national contexts, and some countries have added to,
or amended, the global targets, to reflect specific national concerns.
Developing countries should set and work towards time-bound national
targets that reflect their obligation to prioritise the meeting
of at least minimum essential levels of economic, social and cultural
rights (water, housing, healthcare, education, food and sanitation)
for all, within the shortest possible time, going beyond the MDG
targets as necessary. Developing countries must take into account
the resources available to them nationally and through international
cooperation and assistance. Their targets should be reflected
in national plans of action, laws and policies, budgets, and frameworks
which identify appropriate monitoring mechanisms, institutional
responsibilities, time-frames, benchmarks and indicators for progress.
34. For DFID and other donors—bilateral
and multilateral—this means aligning international cooperation
with partner countries' human rights obligations to ensure the
realisation of at least minimum essential levels or economic,
social and cultural rights for all, as a step towards the
full realisation of these rights, giving adequate priority to
the most marginalised and ensuring non-discrimination.
Guarantee full and informed participation
35. Developing countries should ensure free,
meaningful and informed participation of people living in poverty
in the planning, implementation and monitoring of MDG efforts
at all levels, in order to help guarantee that these efforts benefit
people—including the poorest and most marginalised. States
must also ensure freedom of expression, association and assembly,
and the promotion and protection of the rights of human rights
defenders.
36. DFID, multilateral development agencies
and international financial institutions can support the effective
participation of local communities (including the most marginalised
and vulnerable), civil society organisations, parliaments and
national human rights bodies in national plans and strategies.
This should include support to ensuring participation in developing
local and national priorities and monitoring the use of development
assistance at the local and national levels, and holding states
to account for their use of development assistance resources.
Strengthen national and international mechanisms
for accountability
37. There must be effective accountability
mechanisms —at the local, national and international levels—to
hold governments accountable for ensuring that their efforts towards
the MDGs are consistent with human rights standards. At the national
level, mechanisms such as courts, national human rights institutions
and regulatory bodies should play an important role in this regard
and can provide effective remedies for human rights violations.
At the international level, all states should report on their
national and international implementation of the MDGs in their
reports to the Universal Periodic review of the Human Rights Council
and international human rights mechanisms; any new MDG monitoring
processes and accountability mechanisms should incorporate a human
rights focus.
38. DFID and other donors (bilateral and
multilateral) should promote mutual accountability in development
assistance by working with partner countries to ensure that development
assistance is guided by human rights principles and standards—including
adequate focus on the most marginalised and non-discrimination—and
that human rights standards are used to inform and guide policy
dialogue and choices, poverty reduction strategies and the identification
of priorities. Ensuring transparency and access to information
on the provision and use of development assistance is also critical
to promoting accountability.
Ensure that women's rights are put at the centre
of all efforts to achieve and surpass the MDGs
39. Developing countries and DFID and other
donors should identify and address gender discrimination in law,
policy and practice, including in relation to women's sexual and
reproductive rights. Women's rights to participate equally and
fully in all levels of decision-making and in education, economic
and public life should be respected and promoted. Human rights
issues such as early and forced marriage, female genital mutilation,
unsafe abortion and violence against women must receive particular
attention.
LOOKING AHEAD
TO POST-2015
40. Any discussions and considerations regarding
a possible new or revised global framework post-2015 must give
attention to the need to reflect states' existing obligations
under human rights law. Any such framework after 2015 must be
based on, and consistent with, human rights standards. It must
address discrimination comprehensively and establish global and
national targets and timelines to fulfil minimum essential levels
of economic, social and cultural rights for all, and ensure that
there are effective national and international accountability
mechanisms to monitor the realisation of goals aimed at addressing
poverty and exclusion and their consistency with human rights
obligations. People living in poverty must be enabled to participate
meaningfully in MDG planning, implementation and monitoring at
all levels; and equal participation by women must be ensured.
The work of human rights defenders must be guaranteed through
allowing for people's rights to information, freedom of expression
and association.
October 2010
5 Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, 2-4
September 2008, para. 13 (c), Accra Agenda for Action, Accra,
Ghana, available at www.undp.org/mdtf/docs/Accra-Agenda-for-Action.pdf,
last accessed 24 May 2010. Back
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