Rights & Development Portal
 
 
Northern NGOs, Bilateral Aid Organizations, Multilateral Organizations using Rights-Based Approaches. Please help us build this list by sending your suggestions to cdhrjournal@gmail.com  
 
Centre for Development and Environment (SUM – Norway): SUM is an international research institution at the University of Oslo.  It promotes scholarly work on the challenges and dilemmas posed by sustainable development.  SUM has an extensive network of national and international research partners, and works in close cooperation with researchers in the South. Among SUM’s key areas of research is poverty and development, wherein it focuses on how the lives of the poor are characterized by the lack of capabilities and entitlements to food, health, education, land, natural resources, security and political influence.   

Centre for Economic and Social Rights (CESR): CESR works to promote social justice through human rights.  Capitalizing on the convergences and bridging the disciplinary divides between the development and human rights agendas, CESR seeks to render development processes more accountable for economic and social rights violations. 

Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE): COHRE is an independent, international, non-governmental, not-for-profit human rights organization whose mission is to ensure the full enjoyment of the human rights to adequate housing for everyone, everywhere.

Department for International Development (DFID): The United Kingdom's foreign-aid program has explored a human rights approach to development in several policy and strategy papers. 

ESCR-net.org: This is a global network on economic, social and cultural rights links NGOs working on economic and social human rights worldwide.

Franciscans International: An NGO with General Consultative status at the UN. As part of its work on peace and the eradication of poverty, the organization follows closely the right to development in the UN and has organized symposia and issued several publications on the right to development.   

François-Xavier Bagnoud Centre for Health and Human Rights: This is an academic centre that focuses on health and human rights. The Centre combines the academic strengths of research and teaching with a strong commitment to service and policy development. 

Food Information and Action Network (FIAN): FIAN is an international human rights organization that has advocated for the realization of the right to food for more than 20 years. FIAN consists of national sections and individual members in over 50 countries around the world. FIAN is a not-for-profit organization without any religious or political affiliation and has consultative status to the United Nations.

International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC): IWHC promotes and protects the sexual and reproductive rights and health (SRRH) of all women and young people, particularly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, by helping to develop effective health and population policies, programs, and funding. 

Minority Rights Group International (MRG): MRG defends the rights of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities and indigenous peoples, including their role in development. MRG has consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

Oxfam International: A confederation of 12 national Oxfam organizations that combines development projects with advocacy efforts, including health education, debt relief and fair trade. It is one of the few major international development NGOs to apply a human rights based approach.

The People’s Movement for Human Rights Learning (PDHRE): PDHRE, formerly The People’s Decade for Human Rights Education, describes itself as an independent, international, non-profit organization promoting, enhancing and providing learning about human rights as relevant to people's daily lives at all levels of society, that leads to action. PDHRE was established in 1988 in an effort to respond to the unmet need for Human Rights Learning at the grassroots level that needed this knowledge and strategy the most as a powerful tool for action.

Social Watch: Social Watch is an international network of citizens’ organizations whose mission is to eradicate poverty and the causes of poverty, to end all forms of discrimination and racism, and to ensure an equitable distribution of wealth and the realization of human rights.  Social Watch endeavours to hold governments, the UN system and international organizations accountable for the fulfilment of national, regional and international commitments to eradicate poverty.

 

Southern/Developing-Country NGOs and Social Movements using Rights-Based Approaches (excluding India). Please help us build this list by sending your suggestions to cdhrjournal@gmail.com  
 

Asian Pacific Network on Food Sovereignty: This is a regional network of social movements, farmers’ organizations, women’s organizations and NGOs established to address the issues of increasing trade liberalization in agriculture, worsening food insecurity, landlessness, erosion of agricultural biodiversity and the suppression of peasants’ democratic rights.

Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI): CHRI is an independent, non-partisan, international non-governmental organisation, mandated to ensure the practical realisation of human rights in the countries of the Commonwealth. In 1987, several Commonwealth associations founded CHRI because they felt that while the member countries had both a common set of values and legal principles from which to work and a forum within which to promote human rights, there was relatively little focus on human rights issues.  CHRI's objectives are to promote awareness of and adherence to the Harare Commonwealth Declaration, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and other internationally recognised human rights instruments, as well as domestic instruments supporting human rights in Commonwealth member states.  CHRI’s headquarter office is in New Delhi, India.

Greenbelt Movement (Kenya): The GBM Kenya was established in 1977 by Professor Wangari Maathai under the auspices of the National Council of Women of Kenya. Its mission is to mobilize community consciousness for self-determination, equity, improved livelihoods and security, and environmental conservation. GBM Kenya frames many issues and demands in the language of rights.

MST (Brazil): The Landless Workers’ Movement (Portuguese: Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra, or simply MST) is a social movement in Brazil with an estimated 1.5 million landless members in 23 out of Brazil’s 26 states. The MST organizes landless and impoverished farmers to realize their civil rights.

People’s Heath Movement (PHM): PHM is a global network of grassroots health activists, civil society organizations and academic institutions particularly from developing countries.   PHM calls for a revitalisation of the principles of the Alma-Ata Declaration which promised Health for All by the year 2000 and complete revision of international and domestic policy that has shown to impact negatively on health status and systems.  It frames the goal of Health for All as a rights issue and seeks to promote it through an equitable, participatory and inter-sectoral movement.

Treatment Action Campaign (South Africa): The TAC was founded in 1998 by the HIV-positive AIDS activist Zackie Achmat.  It is rooted in the experiences, direct action tactics and anti-apartheid background of its founder.  TAC has been credited with forcing the reluctant government of former South African President Thabo Mbeki to begin making anti-retroviral drugs available to South Africans. 
National/Indian NGOs and Social Movements using Rights-Based Approaches. Please help us build this list by sending your suggestions to cdhrjournal@gmail.com  
 

Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN): HLRN is an integral part of the Habitat International Coalition (HIC). HLRN describes itself as working for the recognition, defence, promotion, and realization of the human rights to adequate housing and land. HLRN was established in 1999 in New Delhi to address the growing need for research, education, and advocacy on housing and land rights in South Asia. HLRN focuses on promoting and protecting the equal rights of women to housing, land, property and inheritance. It aims to achieve its goals through advocacy, research, human rights education, and outreach through network building at local, national and international levels.

National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM): NAPM describes itself as an alliance of progressive people’s organizations and movements, who while retaining their autonomous identities, are working together to bring the struggle for primacy of rights of communities over natural resources, conservation and governance, decentralized democratic development.

National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR): NCDHR describes itself as a forum committed to the elimination of discrimination based on caste. It is a democratic secular platform led by Dalit women and men activists, with support and solidarity from movements and organizations, academics, individuals, people’s organizations and institutions throughout the country who are committed to work to protect and promote human rights of Dalits focusing on women and children.

National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI): NCPRI describes itself as a platform of individuals and organizations committed to making the Indian government and society more transparent and accountable. It seeks to empower people and to deepen democracy, through promoting the people’s right to know. By encouraging disclosure of information relevant to the public, it seeks to fight corruption and social apathy, to make governments, and other institutions and agencies having an impact on public welfare, more humane and accountable to the people they are meant to serve.

NAZ India: The Naz Foundation (India) Trust (NI) is a New Delhi based NGO working on HIV/AIDS and Sexual Health since 1994. Through the years, Naz India has evolved and implemented a holistic approach to combat HIV, focusing on prevention as well as treatment. Its focus is on reaching out to marginalized populations infected and affected by HIV, and on sensitizing the community to the prevalence of HIV.  NAZ India follows a rights-based approach.

Operation ASHA: Operation ASHA is a non-government organization based out of Delhi, India and Chicago, USA that aims to eradicate tuberculosis (TB) worldwide.  Op-ASHA treats TB among more than two million individuals, most of who live in India’s slum communities. Op-ASHA follows a rights-based approach and considers health a human right.

Right to Food Campaign: The Right to Food Campaign is an informal network of organizations and individuals committed to the realization of the right to food in India. The Campaign is based on the principle that everyone has a fundamental right to be free from hunger. According to the Campaign, the primary responsibility for guaranteeing basic entitlements rests with the state. This has led to a sustained focus on legislation and schemes such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), Mid-Day Meals Scheme (MDMS), and the Public Distribution System (PDS).

Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA):  SEWA, a trade union registered in 1972, is an organization of poor, self-employed women workers. SEWA’s main goals are to organize women workers for full employment, meaning employment whereby workers obtain work security, income security, food security and social security (at least health care, child care and shelter).  SEWA often frames issues and objectives in the language of rights.

Working Group on Human Rights (WGHR) in India and the UN:  WGHR was established in January 2009 by a group of civil society organizations and independent experts working in the field of human rights in India.  The basis of WGHR’s work is national and international human rights law.  WGHR describes itself as working towards the realization of all civil, cultural, economic, political and social human rights in the country and towards holding the Indian government accountable to its national and international human rights obligations. The following organizations are members of WGHR: Action Aid India, Asian Centre for Human Rights, Citizens for Justice and Peace, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, FIAN India, HAQ: Centre for Child Rights, Housing Land Rights Network, Human Rights Alert, India Alliance for Child Rights, Lawyers Collective, Multiple Action Research Group, National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights, Partners for Law in Development, and People’s Watch.

Over the years, a number of scholars have helped frame poverty and development as human rights issues. Given below are some important contributors to this field, both globally and with respect to India.  Please help us build this list by sending your suggestions to cdhrjournal@gmail.com
 
Bina Agarwal is currentlyDirector and Professor of Economics, Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi, India.In a Field of One’s Own (Cambridge University Press, 1994), Agarwal’s best-known work, she stresses the connection between gender equality and land rights, particularly the importance of land inheritance and ownership for women in India.

Bård Anders Andreassen is currently with the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights and the Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, Norway. Andreassen is the author of numerous publications, including (co-authored with Stephen Marks), Development as a Human Right: Legal, Political and Economic Dimensions (Harvard University Press, 2006).

Upendra Baxi is currently (since 1996) Professor of Law in Development, University of Warwick, served as Professor of Law, University of Delhi (1973-1996) and as its Vice Chancellor (1990-1994).  Baxi has taught various courses in law and science, comparative constitutionalism and social theory of human rights at Universities of Sydney, Duke University, The American University, the New York University Law School Global Law Program, and the University of Toronto. Among his significant publications is Human Rights in a Post Human World: Critical Essays (Oxford University Press, 2007).

Simon Caney is currently Professor in Political Theory, University Lecturer, Director of the Centre for the Study of Social Justice, and Fellow and Tutor in Politics, Magdalen College, Oxford.Among Caney’s numerous publications is Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory (Oxford University Press, 2006). 

Jean Dreze is currently Honorary Professor, Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi, India.  Among Dreze’s significant contributions to the field is Hunger and Public Action (co-authored with Amartya Sen, Clarendon Press, 1991).  Apart from his scholarly work, Dreze is known for his key role in social movements in India, such as the Right to Information Campaign and the Right to Food Campaign.  Dreze has also served on the Government of India’s National Advisory Council (NAC), which was set up by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in 2004 as the government’s main interface with civil society.

Stephen P. Marks is currently the François-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he directs the Program on Human Rights in Development. He also teaches human rights in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard College and is affiliated with the University Committee on Human Rights Studies, the Center for International Development, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Among his recent publications are “The Human Right to Development: Between Rhetoric and Reality”, Harvard Human Rights Journal, Vol. 17 (Spring 2004) and  Human Rights Cities: Civic Engagement for Societal Development (co-authored with Kathleen Modrowski), UN HABITAT and PDHRE, Sextant Publishing, 2008.

Martha Nussbaum is currentlyErnst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago. She also holds Associate appointments in Classics and Political Science, is a member of the Committee on Southern Asian Studies, and a Board Member of the Human Rights Program. She previously taught at Harvard and Brown. Among Nussbaum’s recent publications is Frontiers of Justice (Harvard University Press, 2006), in which she furthers the “capabilities approach” to development, which she has promoted with Amartya Sen since the early 1990s.   

Thomas Pogge is currently the Director of the Global Justice programme and Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University. Regarded as one of the most eminent philosophers of our times, Pogge is a prolific scholar.  Among his many significant publications are Politics as Usual: What Lies Behind the Pro-Poor Rhetoric (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010) and World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Polity Press 2008). Pogge is also the primary initiator of several projects that seek to apply theoretical aspects of philosophical inquiry to the betterment of the lives of the poor, including Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP) and the Health Impact Fund (HIF), of which is the President and Director (for more on this important initiator, see www.healthimpactfund.org).

Amartya Sen is currently Thomas W. Lamont Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. Sen was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics and Social Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory.  Sen, whose name typically requires no further introduction, is the author of numerous books and papers, including Development as Freedom (Oxford University Press, 1999), and the Idea of Justice (Harvard University Press, 2009).