Statements and speeches Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

"Withstanding crises – lessons learnt, human rights-based recovery and looking forward"

19 January 2023

Delivered by

Location

Geneva

I am delighted to join this discussion and share some thoughts on how human rights offer solutions and help us withstand the multiple crises threatening achievements toward a more just and sustainable future. Let me start by thanking the Permanent Mission of Denmark and the Danish Institute for Human Rights for organizing this important event.

We are at a critical juncture. The latest SDG progress report issued by the UN Secretary-General notes that the pandemic has erased over four years of progress on poverty eradication and pushed an additional 93 million people into extreme poverty. The climate emergency and the wide-ranging and multifaceted impacts of conflict, including but not just the war in Ukraine, have further derailed progress. We have witnessed the human development index decline for two successive years for the first time over three decades, reversing the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

Today’s challenges have highlighted and exacerbated inequalities, while disproportionately affecting those most marginalized, pushing people behind, when we should be lifting them up. More and more people are having to choose between going hungry or going cold, between buying medicine or schoolbooks, between falling prey to unsustainable debt to pay the rent or homelessness.

Global recession and austerity measures expected in over 140 countries worldwide are contributing to enhancing poverty and deepening inequalities between and within countries. Sixty per cent of low-income countries and thirty per cent of emerging market economies are in or near debt distress, hampering States’ ability to deliver on health, education, social protection and other human rights.

We are faced with a formidable challenge. The SDG Summit next September, marking the half-way point to 2030, is a critical moment to deliver a global plan to accelerate SDG implementation, anchored in human rights outcomes.

A re-set is sorely needed, a re-set that places human rights at its centre, across all sectors, across all levels of policymaking, and all dimensions of sustainable development. This is the core of the Secretary General’s vision behind the Call to Action for Human Rights and the Our Common Agenda.

I will put forward three points to stimulate our discussion. If we aim to push the SDGs wheel forward, we must rotate the financial cog of that wheel in the same direction by taking concrete steps towards a human rights-enhancing economy, an approach which we have worked on extensively.

First, we need to integrate existing human rights obligations into economic policy discussions in order to build an economy that benefits everyone in line with the objectives of SDGs. States must be intentional in designing public budgets and revenue strategies that invest in economic, social and other rights, combat discrimination and reduce gender and other inequalities. This approach would be coherent with the pledge to leave no one behind and allow us to reach those furthest behind first. It is only with greater international solidarity that supports national efforts that we can collectively achieve the SDGs.

Second, we need to do more, and we need to do better on climate justice by actively supporting the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. Anchoring environmental action in a human rights perspective has the potential to increase climate resilience and strengthen crisis preparedness and contingency planning in ways that benefits those who have contributed the least, but are being impacted the most by the triple planetary crisis.

Third, all policy making should be grounded in meaningful participation, social dialogue, transparency and accountability. State would greatly benefit from the broadest possible consultations through the protection of a dynamic civic space. This is the core of SDG16, essential to unlocking the 2030 Agenda.

This is a moment for transformative leadership to build more equal and sustainable societies. Let us work towards placing human rights at the centre of policymaking, building on the vision of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UDHR 75 provides us with an opportunity for unity and hope, that mobilizes the world for the cause of human rights and that sets us on the path towards a better future, based on justice and equality for all.

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