Since 2001, Africa’s leaders have committed the African Union and their Governments to promote and protect the right to health in a series of international and continental legal protocols and declarations. Thes commitments provide a comprehensive package for addressing the challenges of maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS, violence and disease. However, the urgent action needed to address what African Governments have described as a 'continental state of emergency' can only be achieved by ensuring firm policy and programme linkages between Sexual and Reproductive Health, HIV/AIDS and Gender Based Violence.
Values, Policies and Rights
Although the estimated 600 million people with disabilities have formally been recognized, in reality they are still often being overlooked and by no means enjoy the same rights as the rest of the world's population. The goal is to ensure that all people, disabled and able bodied alike, have the same access to all kinds of services in society, in particular health care.
For 650 million people with disabilities - roughly 10 percent of the world’s population - a new UN treaty which would extend international human rights to this traditionally marginalised sector of society is finally within reach. After four years and eight sessions of negotiations, the United Nations‘ Convention to Protect the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was recently finalised by the UN General Assembly’s Ad Hoc Committee. The UN disability convention guarantees persons with disabilities non-discrimination and equal recognition before the law; security, mobility and accessibility; the right to health, work and education; and participation in political and cultural life.
Since 2001, Africa’s leaders have committed the African Union and their Governments to promote and protect the right to health in a series of international and continental legal protocols and declarations. These commitments provide a comprehensive package for addressing the challenges of maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS, violence and disease. However, the urgent action needed to address what African Governments have described as a “continental state of emergency” can only be achieved by ensuring firm policy and programme linkages between Sexual and Reproductive Health, HIV/AIDS and Gender Based Violence. The article encourages African Health Experts and Ministers of Health meeting in Maputo to ensure that the draft Action Plan contains targets and indicators that enshrine on key components of the Abuja Declaration.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has in 2004 developed guidelines as a practical tool to assist States to both understand and fulfill their obligations on the right to food. The guidelines were adopted in September 2004. This report and fact-finding mission by Rights and Democracy in collaboration with Foodfirst Information and Action Network in 2006 is an effort to apply the FAO Guidelines in a practical context in Malawi and in doing so, to illustrate the distinct advantages a human rights framework provides for policy and program development in relation to food security. The report identifies a number of legal, policy, institutional and economic constraints to the right to food and makes recommendations to address these.
This is the report from a ground-breaking workshop on sexual rights held in Sweden. Some of the key issues discussed included who defines a right and how they are defined, going beyond identity politics sexuality and morality regarding women, men and transgendered people who sell sex for money.
The document recaps what it means to apply a holistic rights-based lens in development practice, be it in health, in education or in any other sector. It directs us to the corresponding behaviors one would expect to see enacted in health, education or any other development work when applying such an optic. The points within the document present when and under what conditions the adoption of an explicit rights-based approach is more likely to make a lasting difference to equity.
The starting point for this study is the principle that a rights-based approach should be used in framing public policy. The study therefore seeks to address the challenge of combining the ethical aspect of social rights with viable ways of strengthening citizens' entitlement to such rights in highly inequitable and relatively poor societies. It includes an analysis of various aspects of social protection systems (health care, social security and poverty reduction) and their potential to guarantee social rights in structurally heterogeneous societies.
he United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and other organisations working to achieve the goal of universal access to reproductive health have to negotiate highly sensitive and embedded beliefs and practices. In certain contexts challenging female genital cutting, child marriage and instituting gender equity, access to contraception, sexual and reproductive health and information are highly contentious issues. Rather than perceiving cultural perspectives to constrain positive social change, UNFPA’s Culture Matters approach illustrates how development actors might work sensitively with the dynamics of culture to enhance the achievement of development objectives and human rights within a variety of social, cultural and spiritual settings.
This key issues guide reviews current policy issues relating to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), examining questions of definition and exploring key debates. The guide also highlights current and future challenges for attaining greater levels of sexual and reproductive well-being, and considers the role of innovative technologies and approaches in achieving sexual and reproductive health and rights for all.