A/HRC/13/51 are obliged to fulfil. Attention was drawn to the need to evaluate the social impact of development projects on the population. He underlined the importance of training and advocacy campaigns for the public and decision makers on the recognition of and action with people living in extreme poverty. 36. A representative of the Office for International Affairs and Human Rights of the Lutheran World Federation, Peter Prove, presented a case study on the Basic Income Grant pilot project in Namibia, which is also supported by Bread for the World. The project had enjoyed strong community ownership, as indicated by the establishment of a local advisory committee. The non-means-tested unconditional grants provided through the project had had a positive impact on household poverty in the target community, promoting empowerment, spurring entrepreneurship, increasing purchasing power and resulting in a net increase in average household income, which exceeded the financial value of the grants themselves. Other effects included a significant decline in the number of people below the food poverty line; an increase in self-employment; a reduction in child malnutrition; a higher school attendance rate; wider use of a community health clinic and a higher income for it; lower crime rates, and improved efforts to combat alcoholism. 37. In the subsequent interactive debate, statements were made by representatives of Tunisia, Centre Europe – Tiers Monde (CETIM), CIVICUS, the International Federation of University Women, the International Social Science Council, the International Social Security Association, as well as by the independent expert on the question of human rights and extreme poverty, the member of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Dr. Salomon. 38. The importance of social security and the necessity of a basic income were widely recognized, in particular with regard to facilitating access to health care and education. It was highlighted that good governance and impact assessments of social protection programmes were crucial. Speakers also underscored the need to raise awareness about human rights in order to empower poor communities to defend their rights. A rights-based perspective should provide a mechanism for recourse or justiciability of a right in cases of exclusion from social security programmes. Moreover, a human rights-based approach would highlight the obligation to monitor whether social security programmes were reaching the most vulnerable, and to incorporate a gender perspective. It was also noted that long-run approaches that tackled the systemic and structural roots of poverty must be addressed through policies, such as land and agrarian reform and improved social justice. 39. Some statements highlighted the challenges faced by States and civil society in sustaining social grants after the termination of projects and preventing beneficiaries from falling back into poverty. In this respect, there was a call for an international forum on solidarity. In response to an inquiry on whether income grants that reduced poverty drew attention away from the elimination of inequality, it was stated that social grants should not be viewed as a distraction from efforts to tackle inequality, but rather as being complementary to those efforts. 40. There was general recognition of the significance of non-conditionality with regard to basic social security as a human right. It was further stressed that, unless the Government provided the necessary infrastructure for public services, some punitive conditionalities could inadvertently lead to exclusion. In cases where social security cash transfers included conditionalities, the consequences of non-compliance must adhere to a human rights-based approach, and beneficiaries should not be excluded immediately; rather, they should be allowed recourse to a review mechanism. Evaluations of social grant programmes showed that the majority of beneficiaries tended to spend money wisely on education, health and food, and that they would behave in the same manner without conditionality. GE.09-17229 9