A/HRC/20/35 B. Place of rights in reconstruction 61. At the special session of the Human Rights Council held in Geneva at the request of the Government of Brazil on 27 January 2010, the Council adopted resolution A/HRC/S13/1, a robust resolution entitled “Support of the Human Rights Council for the recovery process in Haiti after the earthquake of 12 January 2010: a human rights approach”. Since then, the Independent Expert has made great efforts to ensure that human rights are at the heart of the reconstruction process in Haiti.18 With the support of several members of the Council, and at the request of the Independent Expert, a seminar was held in Port-au-Prince for the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission. 62. In 2011, the Independent Expert was invited to several capital cities19 and addressed a number of meetings to inform the international community about the implications of the resolution adopted by the Council and to draw the attention of donors and international development agencies to the need to develop strategies using a rights-based approach. 63. The Independent Expert also intervened a number of times with cooperation and development agencies to ensure that appropriations and programmes would be channelled to Haiti. He would like to express his gratitude to the Governments and the agencies in question for their attention and their generous response. 64. The Independent Expert should like to recall that the rights-based approach is not a conceptual approach, but rather one that requires a change of paradigm, as it calls first and foremost for special attention to be paid to those who are the most vulnerable, women, children and disabled persons. It also systematically involves civil society organizations, in particular those representing women, farmers and vulnerable groups, in the reconstruction effort, and includes gender-specific analyses and concrete gender-equality targets in reconstruction plans and budgets. It also ensures that labour-intensive reconstruction programmes are not concentrated solely in economic sectors traditionally occupied by men. 65. The rights-based approach is aimed firstly at taking into consideration the needs and aspirations of Haitians themselves so as to restore a more decentralized and sustainable development capable of protecting the population against natural hazards. It is also an approach that makes it possible to ensure that reconstruction is equitable, specifically seeking equality between the wealthiest and the less prosperous regions, with the objective of creating a more fair society. 66. The Independent Expert followed with interest the discussions about the renewal of the mandate of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission or its replacement with a purely Haitian body. Whatever the final decision, which is for the Haitian authorities to make, the Independent Expert should like to recommend that the place of rights in the country’s reconstruction should figure explicitly in the founding text of any such body, and that measures should be taken to achieve this objective. The MINUSTAH Human Rights Section can assist in the training and the development of methodological tools for this project. IV. Violations of rights in the humanitarian crisis 67. Both in Port-au-Prince and outside the capital, the Independent Expert took part in several cluster meetings with humanitarian NGOs with the aim of making them aware of the rights-based approach to humanitarian work. During his talks in the different capitals he 18 19 GE.12-13208 See A/HRC/17/42, paras. 67–70. Specifically Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Oslo, Washington, Bern and Ottawa. 13