Toward a measure of dignity: Indicators for rights-based development

Abstract

While development and human rights have long been pursued in isolation from one another, the two concepts are now being reintegrated. For the UN, the question of indicators arose in the context of the Common Country Assessment (CCA) process, into which a rights-based approach to development was to be integrated. A rights-based approach is based on international human rights standards and directed to protecting human rights. Its elements include participation, accountability, non-discrimination, empowerment and linkage to the international standards. This creates demands for data that are not satisfied by traditional indicators. There is a need to base indicators on international standards; to use a comprehensive human rights framework; to integrate the “rights element” into existing indicators; to measure the subjective, status, capacity, official response, and accessibility. Data must be disaggregated further, to test equality and non-discrimination, and must be read in context. Indicators themselves must be designed as tools of development, not weapons of critique. The next stage of rights-based development will require the compilation of an agreed list of core development indicators for civil and political rights, to measure the administration of justice, political participation, and personal security. It will also require indicators for the measurement of cultural rights in development, and integrating the “rights element” into socio-economic indicators.