Human rights and development.

• Author: Singh, Anita Inder
• Position: Development Watch

Human rights and development are about enhancing individual dignity and increasing choices, chances and capabilities. Peace and security are the ultimate goals of the United Nations. In the long run, they would be best sustained by the implementation of human rights and development policies enhancing the welfare of all individuals.

This concern inspired the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Charter. The themes of human rights and development resonated in the 1966 International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the 1986 Declaration on the Right to Development; the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women; and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. These international instruments suggest that human rights and development are not just about statistics-they encompass economic, social and political processes and the diversity of individuals and countries. In other words, the international community has put human beings at the heart of all development programmes. Ideally, political and economic rights complement one another. Political and civil rights endow the poorest individuals with dignity and the moral and political freedom to choose their rulers , but economic progress can strengthen the political, administrative and legal institutions through which all human rights will be translated into practice. On the other side, development without or with very restricted political and civil rights denies fundamental freedoms; indeed, the events that led to the end of the cold war showed that many in the former communist bloc preferred to live "not by bread alone".

The agenda is complex and challenging, and only a few examples will show why.

Some 1.2 billion people live on less than $1 a day; almost half the world's population is illiterate; and in many countries the lack of educational opportunities deprives the poor of "life chances" and perpetuates human poverty. Development has meaning if it increases individual choices and participation, gives all citizens access to education and health care, and distributes investments so that the poor can become more productive and eventually escape poverty. Life expectancy, increases in income levels, and good healthcare facilities are all linked; the question is, how can they be attained more easily by those who need...