By Kate Morioka, Research Project Manager
Over the past three months I have been analysing and making sense of the data collected from the field, using ActionAid’s rights-based approach as the framework for the analysis.
We often speak broadly about a rights-based approach and why it should underpin all development interventions. But what do we mean by a ‘rights-based’ approach? What does it look like? And how does it explain the problem of climate change? I found myself asking these very questions.
Without spoiling the gist of the research report – which is due to be released next month – I can say that a rights-based approach is about challenging the power imbalances that exist between developed and developing countries, and between men and women. It’s about identifying basic rights that may be compromised by climate change – whether it be the right to food, water, health, housing – and holding governments responsible for their legal obligations in promoting and protecting these rights. However, what appears to be missing from all the global climate change discussions is this rights-based approach. Climate change is not just a scientific problem. It is a development issue that threatens the lives of people all around the world, especially the 1.3 billion people who live in conditions of poverty.
When considering the rights implications of climate change, we need to bear in mind that human rights are:
- universal (they apply to everyone by virtue of being human)
- indivisible (all rights, including civil, political, economic, social and cultural, are inter-connected so that an advancement in one leads to improvement in another, and conversely, a deprivation of one right adversely affects another right) and
- inalienable (they can not be taken away from people).
Tackling climate change using a rights-based approach means putting people at the centre of discussions and decisions, and holding world leaders to account for their responsibilities in safeguarding people’s rights.
The research report, A Climate for Change: Understanding women’s vulnerability and adaptive capacity to climate change from ActionAid’s rights-based approach – case studies from Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands will be available for download on this blog in February 2012.
