Voices of society’s most disadvantaged must be heard and heeded to achieve sustainable development: UN expert

GENEVA (23 June 2023) – Closing the gap between the promise of the Sustainable Development Goals to leave no one behind and its realisation on the ground, requires urgent action to reinforce respect for freedom of opinion and expression, said Irene Khan, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression.

“If development is to be meaningful, then the voices of the most disadvantaged in society must be heard and heeded, and civil society and media must be free to hold the powerful to account,” Khan said in her report on freedom of expression and sustainable development to the Human Rights Council.

“Those who dare to speak truth to power or shine the light on human rights violations, illicit financial flows, tax evasion, corruption and illegal exploitation of natural resources are being gagged, threatened, prosecuted, attacked or killed with impunity,” Khan said.

“Laws on access to information have been widely adopted but requests for information are often denied because of a culture of official secrecy, serious gaps in the scope and implementation of the laws, lack of capacity and resources, a tokenistic approach to participation and uneven access to the Internet,” she said.

“New technologies are creating new inequalities, disproportionately affecting women and girls, Indigenous communities, the poor and the marginalised,” she warned.
The connectivity of those who are already well connected is being enhanced while billions who could have been connected for a fraction of that sum were left unconnected, Khan said.

Khan underscored the value that free flow of information and public debate bring to sustainable development. “They empower individuals, promote accountability, allow Governments to be better informed and more responsive to the needs of their people, and make markets more efficient, generating social and economic dividends,” the expert said.

She urged States to follow good practices of multistakeholder partnerships to build transparency and trust, media freedom to enable reporting on corruption and wrongdoing, and civic space to promote meaningful engagement with communities.

The expert called on companies, including the digital technology sector, to undertake human rights due diligence across their value chain and disclose the impact of their activities on human rights and sustainability.

“As world leaders prepare for the High-Level Summit on Sustainable Development in September, States which most vocally support the Sustainable Development Goals must come forward to invest more heavily in the rights to expression, information and participation that the 2030 Agenda so clearly endorses,” Khan said.

ENDS

*Ms. Irene Khan was appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression on 17 July 2020. Ms. Khan is the first woman to hold this position since the establishment of the mandate in 1993. She teaches at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and was previously Secretary General of Amnesty International from 2001 to 2009 and Director General of the International Development Law Organization (IDLO) from 2012 to 2019.

The Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.