A rights-based approach is a conceptual framework that uses established international human rights standards as a common conceptual framework for fostering the process of human development. This approach endeavours to work towards the protection and realization of human rights for all persons, regardless of age, gender, class, caste, religion, etc. While it operates as a vision, it is also a set of tools: human rights can function as the means, the ends, the mechanism of evaluation and the central focus of sustainable human development. While a rights-based approach facilitates the process of NGOs, communities and individuals to lobby the government and other actors to guarantee access to certain rights, it also turns transforms people from passive recipients of aid to active holders of rights and freedoms.

A rights-based approach changes the type of development work that NGOs do. Experience in development has taught NGOs that it is not sufficient to treat people as passive recipients of aid or charity, but rather they must be empowered with the conditions to realize their rights. For example, when NGOs distribute food to communities, this is not merely a handout from the organization because the right to adequate food is a fundamental right of every human being.

Various international human rights conventions, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Forms of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), embody various rights which countries are expected to hold up and guarantee to their citizens if they are signatory to the convention. These conventions cover a vast range of indivisible and interrelated civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights. In addition, these conventions add legal force to development work by requiring a development framework that mirrors internationally guaranteed rights as set out in these conventions.

Universality, equality and non-discrimination: human rights are founded on the notion that each and every human being, by virtue of being human is a holder of rights. In particular, this approach prioritizes the most vulnerable, marginalized and excluded.

Accountability: increases the levels of accountability in the development process by identifying claim-holders (and their entitlements) and corresponding duty-holders (and their responsibilities).

Empowerment: focuses on strategies for empowerment instead of charitable, welfare responses. The beneficiaries are seen as the owners of rights and the directors of development so that people are able to exercise the power, capacities, capabilities and access needed to change their own lives, improve their own communities and influence their own destinies.

Participation: participation by all stakeholders, including communities, civil society, minorities, women and others at every stage of the development process, is an essential principle, and a right in itself. This requires accessibility to the development process, as well as active and meaningful involvement by all stakeholders.

Indivisibility and Interdependence: All rights are of equal importance. Therefore, rights cannot be addressed separately and nor can one right work to the disadvantage of another. Instead, rights must be seen as operating to support each other. For example, the right to education helps to ensure the right to political participation, and the right to an adequate standard of living cannot be addressed in isolation from the right to clean water.

Rule of law: rights are protected through international and/or national laws, which ensures that everyone is subject to these rights and that these rights are enforceable by impartial and independent legal processes.

There is no one single method for implementing a rights-based approach, because it is a set of tools that can be applied in various strategic and creative ways. Following are some of the many ways that a rights-based approach can be used to ensure the well-being and dignity of people everywhere.

• Because a rights-based approach requires governments to prioritise their resources in accordance with stated human rights principles and obligations, women’s groups, and other civil society groups, can demand that governments provide adequate resources to meet these commitments. For example, advocacy campaigns may compel governments to meet their commitments to gender equity and the right to health through the establishment of a comprehensive women’s healthcare program.

• Civil society groups, donors and government organizations can use a rights-based approach to challenge international trade and investment bodies, such as the WTO and IMF, to integrate the human rights framework into their economic models.

• Development agencies can apply a rights-based approach to their programs by identifying the relevant rights that are involved in the situation or problem they are targeting. The design and implementation of a project would then build in steps towards the fulfilment of these rights, adhering to the fundamental principles, such as ensuring that those impacted by the project are involved at every stage. For example, a rights-based approach to the issue of trafficking requires shifting the focus from viewing trafficked persons as passive victims who must be rescued and rehabilitated to trafficked persons as active bearers of rights who must be empowered and enabled to claim their rights to gender equity, safe migration, education, etc.

• International conventions provide important tools for advancing treatment and prevention methods for HIV/AIDS by compelling governments to ensure the conditions under which people can be healthy. Governments, therefore, become obligated to conduct research on new treatment and prevention methods.

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)

• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESC)

• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)

• International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination