A/HRC/23/36 confidentiality of the participants must be respected in any final report or summary of the process. 68. A participatory process should be followed by concerted action and participatory evaluation. People living in poverty must have effective access to grievance mechanisms in order to hold decision-makers accountable if they feel the outcomes of the participatory process have not been adequately considered, or to seek remedy in case of any abuse. Similarly, there should be accessible accountability mechanisms in place to protest policies or programmes implemented with a lack of participation. Such mechanisms must be accessible and adaptable; for example, a variety of cost-free channels should be provided, as necessary, for the needs and constraints of people living in poverty. Complaint and grievance mechanisms must be sufficiently resourced, culturally appropriate and designed to facilitate the broadest participation possible by vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, in particular by women. 69. For States, the participation of people living in poverty in decisions that affect their lives is a legal obligation rather than a policy option. This means that a person cannot be excluded or “disinvited” from participation, for example if what they say challenges the status quo. The right to participation must be enforceable and the lack of participation must be challengeable through the courts. Therefore, appropriate laws, policies, institutions, procedures and redress mechanisms that will enable accountability for lack of participation, exclusion from participation, or manipulated or co-opted participation, are a crucial foundation for any rights-based participatory process. These mechanisms must be transparent, and must conform to the standards of availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability. Ultimately, policymakers and public officials must be accountable for responding to the demands of the people. 70. The question of who can claim to legitimately represent people living in poverty is an extremely sensitive issue. Ideally, people living in poverty should be directly involved in any decision-making process (see section E below). However, where they are represented by civil society actors such as facilitators or community workers, these actors should give full account of their work to the community. They should also be held responsible for any abuse of their position, breach of trust or acting beyond their mandate. E. Empowerment 71. From a human rights perspective, participation must be premised on empowerment as the ultimate goal. Thus, participation should not be extractive or instrumental, but instead aimed at building the capacity, social capital, confidence, rights awareness and knowledge of people living in poverty. 72. Currently, many participatory processes are limited to “consultation” – a higher authority giving information to or extracting information from members of the public. Participatory processes that are not designed and implemented with a human rights perspective may in fact be disempowering, and serve to exclude or reinforce existing power structures. In contrast, human rights-based participation is an important tool to empower people living in poverty by allowing them to exercise their voice to influence relevant decision-making processes. 73. There is an important distinction between closed, invited and claimed policy spaces32 in terms of their empowering potential. Spaces for policy influence should not be 32 16 L. VeneKlasen et al., Rights-based Approaches and Beyond: Challenges of Linking Rights and Participation, IDS Working Paper No. 235, 2004, p. 5.