A/HRC/12/29
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and practitioners to debate political and methodological challenges in measuring compliance
with the right to development. It also facilitated expert assessments of the existing right to
development criteria with a view to revising them and making them operational and reflective of
standards of qualitative and quantitative evaluation used in international institutions and
recognized by leading social scientists. Thus the outcome of this meeting fed into the work of the
high-level task force in the refinement of the criteria.
E. Financing for development
18. OHCHR, in cooperation with the Center for Concern and ESCR-Net (International
Network for Economic, Social & Cultural Rights), facilitated civil society consultations from
15 to 17 September 2008 to discuss and debate the main themes in the financing for development
agenda from the perspective of human rights. The consultations aimed at integrating human
rights, including the right to development, in financing for development against the backdrop of
challenging development issues given the volatility and crises in the world economy, that have
tended to overshadow the Doha development agenda and the need for a new economic and social
framework that not only prevents future crises, but provides for fairness in their resolution. The
meeting brought together a number of participants, including human rights and development
experts and civil society groups from different regions, and resulted in a set of consolidated
comments on the draft outcome document for the Follow-up International Conference on
Financing for Development to Review the Implementation of the Monterrey Consensus, held in
Doha from 29 November to 2 December 2008.
F. Aid effectiveness, human rights and gender equality
19. Aid effectiveness, with its emphasis on ownership, harmonization, alignment, managing
for results and mutual accountability, aims to increase the impact of aid in reducing poverty and
inequality and accelerating the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. In
collaboration with the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), OHCHR has developed a joint working paper to
provide strategic input to the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra to articulate
advocacy strategies and messages for the aid effectiveness agenda from the perspective of human
rights and gender equality.
G. Millennium Development Goals and poverty reduction
20. OHCHR has continued to work closely with development partners at the international and
national levels to explore how human rights, including the right to development, can support the
efforts of Member States to achieve inclusive development processes and equitable and
sustainable poverty reduction outcomes. OHCHR has developed a conceptual framework to
assess poverty reduction strategies from a human rights perspective which should contribute to
further operationalizing the links between human rights and the achievement of the Millennium
Development Goals. A publication “Claiming the Millennium Development Goals: A human
rights approach” was produced in 2008, which aimed to provide guidance for policymakers
and practitioners to strengthen policies based on the Millennium Development Goals and
United Nations programming from a human rights perspective, and promoting a wider
understanding on the linkages between the Goals and human rights, including the close
relationship between Goal 8 and the right to development. Based on the approach set out in
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