At the dawn of the new millennium, human rights and
development are at a crossroads. On the one hand, the
congruence between human rights and development theory
has never been more striking. Poverty and inequities
between and within countries are now the gravest human
rights concerns that we face. As the Secretary-General underscored
in his 2005 reform report “In larger freedom”,
the challenges of human rights, development and security
are so closely entwined that none can be tackled effectively
in isolation.
United Nations agencies have gone a considerable way
towards reflecting these realities in practice, including
through defining a common understanding of a human
rights-based approach to development cooperation, embodied
within the United Nations common programming
guidelines. And at the World Summit in September 2005,
United Nations Member States gave an unprecedented political
imprimatur and impetus to the Organization’s efforts
to bring human rights to the front and centre of all its work,
a shared commitment that through my 2005 “Plan of action”
I am determined to support.