For several years, the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) has been working on mechanisms to implement a 1986 UN Resolution on the “Right to Development.” To this end, the HRC has created a Working Group on the Right to Development, and a High Level Task Force On The Implementation Of The Right To Development.
The Right to Development (R2D) is an interesting and important concept — it encompasses all other human rights, and creates obligations on governments, private sector organizations and even individuals to collectively organize and cooperate to make development happen. One such obligation is the creation of new global institutions and partnerships that will address development concerns.
Earlier this year the Task Force commissioned studies about the R2D, including one involving the WHO IGWG process, which was done by Lisa Forman, and two other health programs, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (TGF), and the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR). I was the investigator for the TGF and TDR studies. The citation for my report is as follows:
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases and the right to development. Prepared for the UN Human Rights Council, Working Group on the Right to Development, High Level Task Force on the implementation of the right to development. A/HRC/12/WG.2/TF/CRP.4/Rev.1. 2009 June 18.
Among the novel issues raised in the report on TGF and TDR are, (1) should agencies be evaluated both for what they have done, and what they have not done? And (2), how does the R2D framework extend to cases where philanthropic actors have replaced governments or UN agencies as norm setting and governance organizations?
From the introduction:
- The right to development as a human right is a concept that has been explored in a variety of academic, policy and political fora, and has been the subject of a 1986 declaration by the UN General Assembly.3 As a human right, the right to development has yet to attain the type of formal and enforceable status that is associated with many other human rights, but remains profoundly important.4 Much of the world’s population lives in a state of appalling circumstances with limited resources and opportunities, under conditions that are extraordinarily worse than those with higher incomes within and between countries. The existence of persistent under-development is both an enduring shame for the global community and an intellectual mystery. Despite enormous achievements in technology, vast investments in scholarship and development aid, endless workshops and conferences, and the creation of public and private institutions to understand and promote development, the global community has collectively failed to meet countless development benchmarks and goals.
- This review will consider the appropriate criteria for the periodic evaluation of global partnerships for development in the context of the right to development. This evaluation addresses the United Nations Millennium Development Goal Number 8 (MDG-8), “to develop a global partnership for development.” In particular, the evaluation will consider two such partnerships: the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (TGF); and the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR). Among the specific questions that have been asked are the following:
- What are the areas of potential congruence and synergy of the framework and process guiding the operations of the Global Fund and TDR, and right to development?
- What are the lessons learned from the mapping exercise that can aid in present efforts to develop and refine the right to development criteria in relation to Target 8E of the MDGs?
- How could the right to development criteria be better reflected in the work of the Global Fund and TDR?
- How could the Global Fund and TDR contribute to the realization of the right to development?
FN3 Declaration on the Right to Development, adopted by General Assembly resolution 41/128 of 4 December 1986.
FN 4 Development As a Human Right- Legal, Political, and Economic Dimensions, edited by Bård A. Andreassen and Stephen P. Marks, Harvard School of Public Health, 2007; Reflections on the Right to Development, Edited by Arjun Sengupta, Archna Negi and Moushjumi Basu, Sage, 2005.
The full report is available here.