A/HRC/21/22
meet their human rights obligations to stem resource loss, both financial and human, and to
seek international cooperation.49
83.
There is increasing recognition of the responsibilities of non-State development
partners to ensure that human rights are not violated through their activities. 50
84.
Obligations to provide international assistance and cooperation supplement but do
not displace obligations of national Governments.
85.
All development partners should ensure that their development policies are
rights-based, which includes refraining from doing harm to women’s sexual and
reproductive health. For example, restrictions in aid, such as on information regarding
critical reproductive services or intellectual property regimes that create barriers to
accessing essential medicines interfere with Governments’ abilities to realize women’s
sexual and reproductive health rights. 51
86.
International cooperation should be aimed at strengthening the capacity of
national health systems to advance women’s sexual and reproductive health rights.
Development partners should refrain from creating a parallel administration to that of the
Ministry of Health and/or utilizing systems other than those of the Government.
87.
Donor States should protect women’s sexual and reproductive health rights by
effectively regulating private actors over which they exercise control.52 These include
pharmaceutical companies, commodities and device manufacturers, and other companies
that affect the delivery of sexual and reproductive health services abroad.
88.
Policy coherence is essential to the global partnership for development. For
example, donor States should not invest in strengthening health systems while drawing
away, or allow private actors in their jurisdictions to draw away, human resources from
them through migration policies.53 Donor States, individually and collectively, should also
evaluate trade, economic, fiscal and debt policies for coherence with the advancement of
women’s sexual and reproductive health rights.
89.
Development partners should ensure predictable, harmonized and transparent
economic assistance.54 Agreement should be reached with national Governments on
consolidated budget support as well as reporting of “externally funded expenditures”.55 The
Creditor Reporting System of the OECD Development Assistance Committee should be
improved to capture, in a timely manner, all sexual and reproductive health spending by
development partners,56 which should be publicly available and disseminated in accessible
formats.
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, art. 2.
See A/HRC/17/31.
E/C.12/1997/8, para. 4; E/C.12/2000/4, para. 41.
E/C.12/2000/4, para. 39; A/60/348, para. 62.
Ibid., para 61. See also the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health
Personnel, 2010. Available from
www.who.int/hrh/migration/code/WHO_global_code_of_practice_EN.pdf.
OECD, the Paris Agreement and Accra Agenda (see footnote 48). See also the Busan Partnership for
Effective Development Cooperation, outcome of the Fourth High-level Forum on Aid Effectiveness,
2011. Available from
www.aideffectiveness.org/busanhlf4/images/stories/hlf4/OUTCOME_DOCUMENT__FINAL_EN.pdf.
WHO, Keeping Promises, Measuring Results (see footnote 5), p. 2.
Ibid., recommendation 9.
19
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents