8/8/2019 Understanding Rights Based Approach to Development

1/2

8/8/2019 Understanding Rights Based Approach to Development

2/2

educating them of their basic right to water and how they could effectively claim their right to the duty-bearer, the government. By claiming their right,the people are empowered making the government accountable in fulfillingthat right. The NGO on the other hand is a mere intervening agent in fulfillingthe right.

The government is the duty-bearer, however, there is no correspondingduty on the part of the international community especially the developedcountry except cooperation whilst NGOs which are not signatories tointernational agreements have totally no obligations except by its owndevelopment mandate. Nevertheless, this did not prevent NGOs such asOxfam, CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Christian Aid, and ActionAid tointegrate RBA in their programming.

In RBA, beneficiaries are seen as proactive rather than passive subjectsas RBAs aim is to empower people and to participate in development as an

active actor by claiming their right. The countries are bound by the normativeframework of RBA. In addition, their accountability could be checked by theUN treaty monitoring bodies in General Comments and in the Manual onHuman Rights Reporting. The indicators and standards set up UNDP, FAO, WHO and the World Bank which is tasked to monitor ICESCR can be utilizedto measure RBA thus giving tooth to the right to development.

A shift to RBA cannot be equated to merely joining a new fashion in thefield of development. It is not a rejection of former development model butan approach evolving from the lesson learnt from many years of development. 9 RBA is distinguished from mainstream developmentinasmuch as it views development as a right and not a need to be satisfied.The Islamic Relief if it adopts RBA it would focuses on the root cause of poverty and is not merely operating as a charitable work. Since 1986 afterdevelopment has been declared as a right development NGOs andinternational agencies and ever since integrated them and enhanced them intheir programming.

9 Symington, Alyson, A Rights-Based Approach To Development, Womens Rights and Economic Change, No. 1, August 2002