WUNRN
SOCIAL PROTECTIONS – IMPORTANCE TO REDUCE EXTREME POVERTY – GENDER INEQUALITIES
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Poverty/Pages/AnnualReports.aspx
REPORT OF THE UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON EXTREME POVERTY
& HUMAN RIGHTS, MR. PHILIP ALSTON, ON THE IMPLEMENTATION
OF THE RIGHT TO SOCIAL PROTECTION THROUGH THE ADOPTION OF
SOCIAL PROTECTION FLOORS – UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY
IV.Conclusions
50.Future advocacy for
social protection floors needs to acknowledge the lessons that are to be
learned from past experience. First, the reality is that in many states the
political will to eliminate poverty is lacking and, in the absence of a major
change in priorities, the situation will at best improve only incrementally.
Far from being a tragedy about which nothing can be done because of financial
constraints, the persistence of extreme poverty is the result of a series of
deliberate and conscious decisions by key actors who have chosen to prioritize
other goals. Those living in poverty have been largely disempowered and their
economic position reflects their political marginality. Extreme poverty remains
a scourge which the international community has lamented at great length and
with a collective gnashing of teeth, but that same communityhas all too often
refused to take the measures required to eliminate the problem. Embracing the
Social Protection Floor Initiative would constitute a compelling change of
course and mark a genuinely new beginning in the struggle against extreme
poverty.
51.Second, an indispensable
step is to insist on explicit recognition by key actors that there is a human
right to social protection. At present, the right to social security and the
right to an adequate standard of living, proclaimed so proudly in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and subsequently often reaffirmed in binding treaty
obligations, are ignored or even challenged by the policies advocated by many
of the key actors involved in addressing the plight of the hundreds of millions
of persons living in extreme poverty. Many leading international organizations
and financial institutions still avoid recognizing those rights in their
policies and programmes.
52.Third, technocratic
solutions, no matter how innovative and data-driven, will not workunless they
are genuinely empowering of those whom they purport to help.30 In that
regard, extreme poverty is a classic case study in the centrality of human
dignity as a guiding principle of human rights. The poor, we have too often been told by our
politicians and others, are usually to blame for their own plight, whether
because of laziness, incompetence, mendacity, or whatever. Those unjustified
stereotypes provide yet another justification for preferring technocratic
approaches through which we measurethe poor and work out how we are going to
make minimal provision for them, at least in the long term. As Keynes reminded
us, in the long term we are all dead. Those living in extreme poverty will be
dead even more quickly, so that long-term solutions may be little more than an
illusion. Short-term empowerment and respect are what is needed. We need to
reassert a common humanity, shared responsibilities and the centrality of human
dignity.
V.Recommendations
A.Mobilization
to promote social protection floors
53.International
civil society groups should mobilize effectively and in coalition with groups
in other sectors to advocate and promote the Social Protection Floor
Initiative. While the Center for Economic and Social Rights joined with a range
of other groups, including Amnesty International, to call for a commitment to
social protection floors in thesustainable development goals,31 the great majority of international human rights
groups have said little and done less on the issue. It is essential to
acknowledge that extreme poverty, which continues to afflict hundreds of
millions of people, is a negation of all human rights. International civil
society groups in the human rights field fight valiantly to eliminate torture,
to reduce and expose extrajudicial executions, to reduce violence against
women, to outlaw discrimination and the oppression of minorities and so on, but
if the elimination of extreme poverty is not a central part of the collective
human rights vision, it is a highly selective battle that is being fought.
31 Center for Economic and Social Rights and others, “OWG
inches closer to human rights for all post-2015, but still a long road ahead”,
joint statement, 30 April 2014, available from
http://cesr.org/article.php?id=1582.
32 See generally Wouter van Ginneken, “Civil society and
the social protection floor”, International Social Security Review, vol.
66, No. 3-4 (July-December 2013).
54.The
situation is made worse by the fact that some of the leading international
human rights non-governmental organizations insist that resource distribution
is a matter they cannot address. That position makes meaningful action to
eliminate extreme poverty almost impossible and thus largely entrenches the
status quo. Policies premised on the assumption that effective poverty
elimination strategies need not involve resource redistribution are at odds
with empirical realities.
55.The
leading human rights groups should thus engage actively with the Coalition for
a Social Protection Floor,32
as well as taking
their own targeted initiatives.
56.Advocacy
at the national level is also essential. If a lowest common denominator
approach continues to prevail at the international level, civil society actors
and others need to concentrate their efforts more at the national
level. That means advocacy in relation both to
national social protection policies and to national policy vis-à-vis the
international agenda in the field.
57.In
particular, civil society should engage actively in debates over affordability
at the national level. In that context, it is pertinent to recall the highly
relevant report by the previous Special Rapporteur on the key role played by
fiscal and related policies at the national level in terms of generating the
resources necessary for poverty reduction and the realization of human rights
(A/HRC/26/28).33
UN
ECONOMIC, SOCIAL & CULTURAL RIGHTS COMMITTEE
GENERAL COMMENT NO. 19 - The Right to Social Security - http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/TBSearch.aspx?Lang=en&TreatyID=9&DocTypeID=11
The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights publishes its interpretation of the content of human rights provisions, in the form of general comments on thematic issues.
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http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=10474&LangID=E
UN SPECIAL
RAPPORTEUR (Former) ON EXTREME POVERTY URGES COUNTRIES TO FOCUS SOCIAL
PROTECTIONS ON GENDER INEQUALITIES (A/69/297)
NEW YORK - Social protection systems with a gender focus can increase women’s participation in economic life, provide them with income security in old age and improve nutritional levels and food security, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty told the General Assembly today.
Warning that “poverty is not gender-neutral,” Magdalena Sepúlveda urged states to “devote increased attention to gender equality while designing, implementing and evaluating social protection programmes within a human rights framework.”
Women are more vulnerable to poverty because of discrimination and gender inequality. Therefore, “the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals greatly depends on the strengthening of women’s enjoyment of the full range of their human rights, including gender equality and women’s empowerment,” she noted while presenting her report on human rights and extreme poverty.*
She acknowledged that in recent years, many countries have put in place or strengthened social protection initiatives to address the persistence of extreme poverty. Such social protection measures were essential to accelerating progress on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The Special Rapporteur warned, however, that some social protection schemes specifically targeting women within households could, if badly designed, exacerbate or contribute to inequalities.
“Social protection programmes must be complemented by other social policies aimed at increasing women’s economic autonomy such as ensuring access to education, land, productive resources and credit, fair inheritance rights, full legal capacity, justice and freedom from all forms of violence,” she stressed.
Social protection measures must also acknowledge the role played by women as providers of care, without reinforcing patterns of discrimination and negative stereotyping.
“Social policies must encourage a better balance in the way men and women share household responsibilities, in particular the care of children and older persons,” she said.
In her report to the General Assembly, Sepúlveda highlights the importance of social protection measures in facilitating the achievement of the MDGs and provides recommendations on the core elements of a rights-based social protection system, including the meaningful integration of gender-related concerns.
Magdalena Sepúlveda is the Special Rapporteur on the question of human rights and extreme poverty since May 2008. She is a Chilean lawyer currently working as Research Director at the International Council on Human Rights Policy in Geneva. She has extensive experience in economic, social and cultural rights and holds a PhD in international human rights law from Utrecht University.