Rights-based approach to development

Rights-based approach to development is an approach to development promoted by many development agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to achieve a positive transformation of power relations among the various development actors. This practice blurs the distinction between human rights and economic development. There are two stakeholder groups in rights-based development—the rights holders (who do not experience full rights) and the duty bearers (the institutions obligated to fulfill the holders' rights). Rights-based approaches aim at strengthening the capacity of duty bearers and empower the rights holders.

Human rights came into global discourse after the United Nations passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. This was the first global recognition that all humans are inherente United Nations endorsement of democracy had little to do with the UN's stance on development.Human rights became one of the major debates between the West and Communist states during the Cold War. Cold War dichotomy of right versus left defined power of the state and of the individual in aspects of society based on political affiliation. The end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet bloc left Western values and ideas, which remains one of the main ideologies of the world.

Human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, used to focus primarily on documenting human rights violations on the civil and political level. No longer do these organizations focus solely on human rights violations, but also on social, economic, and cultural rights. The evolution of human rights organizations and development organizations and the western idea that rights are asserted through responsibilities, duties, transparency, trust, and accountability have led to the development of the rights-based approach. In 1993 the UN held the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna; during this conference they developed the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, where they linked democracy, human rights, sustainability and development. This made the Cold War division of Civil and Political Rights and Economic Social and Cultural rights interdependent. This further led to the linkage between human rights and development and enabled policy makers and developers to incorporate a rights-based approach into their policies.

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