A/HRC/10/23 page 5 II. POVERTY AND HUMAN RIGHTS 8. Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, with a poverty rate of 42 per cent. Another 20 per cent of Afghans are situated slightly above the poverty line, indicating a very high level of vulnerability. 9. Abusive power structures, weak governance, discrimination and marginalization contribute to alarming levels of poverty that impoverish the lives of millions of Afghans; 61 per cent of the population is said to be vulnerable to food insecurity. Serious drought, resulting in a poor harvest, as well as high prices for staple foods means that the right to food and to the highest attainable standard of health, especially among poor households, is being severely impacted. Afghanistan has deep inequities in the distribution of its wealth, and productive resources are concentrated in the hands of a few. Three decades of conflict have left vulnerable groups with limited or no access to land or to livelihoods or even basic social services, and subject to exploitation by those in power. A human rights analysis is crucial to the success of poverty reduction initiatives, particularly in regard to the factors that affect decision-making and resource allocation. 10. A positive step in 2008 was the adoption of the country’s poverty reduction strategy paper, ANDS, which is also the vehicle to implement the Afghanistan Compact benchmarks. It was approved in June 2008 at the Paris Conference, during which donors indicated their commitment to assist the Government. To succeed as a poverty reduction strategy, all stakeholders, including the poor, must participate in its implementation, monitoring and evaluation. ANDS generally frames human rights in civil and political terms only and fails to identify the Government’s obligations under the various treaties it has ratified. As the design stage is now complete, efforts need to be made so that human rights are duly taken into consideration in the implementation phase, particularly regarding economic and social development. Most sector strategies inadequately define how the situation of vulnerable groups will be addressed. Moreover, the poor will not benefit unless the requisite budgetary allocation is dedicated for essential service delivery to the most vulnerable sectors of society. 11. Given that all United Nations agencies will be involved in supporting the implementation of the ANDS, they should be encouraged to adopt the human rights-based approach (HRBA) to development as an efficient tool to address the needs of the people through the prism of rights and to support the efforts of the Government in meeting its obligations. As part of the ANDS implementation process, most provinces have adopted a Provincial Development Plan (PDP) to implement the objectives of ANDS. As part of the preparations for the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) process, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) piloted, with the support of UNAMA and the United Nations Action 2 Global Secretariat, a project in the provinces of Bamyan and Dai Kundi, which focused on the human rights dimension of poverty and how the implementation of ANDS could be used as a tool to facilitate the realization of human rights. Through HRBA and capacity-building activities, interest has been catalysed among all participating provincial development partners, including provincial government officials, civil society, and international development actors. This is particularly so for the value of HRBA in achieving sustainable development, improving aid coordination and effectiveness and mobilizing adequate resources for provinces that receive less attention because of their relative stability.