A/HRC/45/19 multi-stakeholder initiative, organized by OHCHR, together with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and with the support of the Ministry of Health, women living with HIV from around the country were brought together to document their human rights concerns in relation to their sexual and reproductive health, including maternal health, and dialogue with duty bearers on potential corrective actions. B. Legislation, planning and budgeting 11. Ensuring that laws and policies are aligned with human rights standards and adequately resourced is another important component of applying a human rights-based approach. An important first step is to guarantee the right to health, including sexual and reproductive health in law, including through constitutional protections, as exist in many countries. 12. Some States have an established practice of verifying that proposed laws and policies are in line with their human rights obligations. For instance, New Zealand explained its practice of ensuring that all policy proposals leading to legislation must be assessed for consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the Human Rights Act 1993. 13. In undertaking such an alignment exercise, a human rights-based approach influences the content of laws and policies, such as prioritizing a focus on the most marginalized populations. For instance, Australia reported that the technical guidance had informed the development of the National Women’s Health Strategy 2020–2030 with respect to addressing core human rights principles, identifying priority areas, including maternal, sexual and reproductive health and the underlying determinants of health, and recognizing priority populations, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Ethiopia highlighted how the Ministry of Health had used the guidance in building consensus at the subnational levels on the importance of using a human rights-based approach in reducing maternal mortality and morbidity and using the available resources to ensure the availability, accessibility, acceptability and good quality of services. Steps taken included focusing on pastoralist regions, which constituted about 20 per cent of the population, to address disparities in, and the availability, access and utilization of, maternal health services, and revitalizing support for health extension programmes in order to reach women and girls living in rural areas where access to maternal health services was more challenging. C. Programmes and capacity-building 14. Applying a human rights-based approach is also achieved through dedicated programmes to address specific human rights concerns. For instance, building capacity in the application of human rights-based approaches is critical for ensuring that duty bearers have the information and resources they require to meet their obligations. There are also numerous programmes directed towards ensuring the availability, affordability, acceptability and quality of services, as required under human rights law. 15. Nepal reported efforts to build enhanced capacity and understanding of human rights-based approaches, with support from the United Nations, which had led to a commitment to the provision of respectful maternity care as a cornerstone of its health policy. In Uganda, OHCHR had worked with the Ministry of Health to build capacity among local government officials, as well as medical officers, on applying a human rightsbased approach, with a focus on maternal health. 16. In Argentina, the Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad8 and the Access to Safe Abortion Network 9 had, since 2007 and 2011, respectively, organized capacity-building 8 9 See www.cedes.org/ (in Spanish). See www.redaas.org.ar/english. 5