A/HRC/31/31
V. Public and stakeholder participation, including in design,
collection, analysis and subsequent decision-making
41.
Successful measurement of human rights, supporting a truly transformative policy
agenda, cannot be fully achieved without the participation and consultation of the persons
concerned. As a cross-cutting human rights principle in measurement processes,
consultation and participation should be the basis for designing a methodology, collecting
data, analysing the results, adjusting policies and programmes and prioritizing resources.
42.
South Africa has established citizen-based monitoring, which is focused on:
The experiences of citizens in relation to government performance, in order to
improve public accountability and service delivery. The approach emphasizes the
building of capacity, of both citizens and officials, at the point where services are
delivered in order to (i) monitor how citizens experience service delivery, (ii)
analyse this feedback, (iii) take actions for improvements and (iv) communicate to
all stakeholders.32
43.
The Ministry of Justice and the National Institute of Statistics of the Plurinational
State of Bolivia have signed an agreement for the joint development of human rights
indicators, based on the methodology of OHCHR. The development of indicators has been
included in the official statistics that the National Institute of Statistics produces regularly.
The Plurinational State of Bolivia established indicators in relation to six prioritized rights,
namely food, education, health, employment and housing and the right of women to live a
life free of violence. Additional indicators are being developed on the right to live a life free
of trafficking, the right to safe drinking water and sanitation and the right to access justice
and a fair trial. The indicators were developed with the involvement of public institutions
and civil society organizations and are now being used to align public policy with the
recommendations issued by international human rights mechanisms. The indicators,
descriptions and related data are available on a dedicated website, which allows the public
to access the indicators and to follow and provide input to the work of the Steering
Committee.33
44.
According to the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat),
“participatory enumeration is a data gathering process which is to a significant extent
jointly designed and conducted by the people who are being surveyed”.34 Data-gathering by
communities can be an effective way of empowering them and engaging them in a
constructive dialogue with the authorities. In the case of a railway construction in the
Philippines, the Magallanes neighbourhood association understood the need for reliable
information to negotiate relocation or alternatives to eviction. The association conducted a
survey and gathered information to draw up a master list of local residents. The
Government undertook its own survey and identified people who would be included in the
relocation programme:
When the two sides met to negotiate, the community’s master list was an invaluable
source of information to check against the government’s list of names. There were
many inconsistencies between the two lists: around one-third of the people on the
association’s list were nowhere to be found in the government’s list: households
32
33
34
See www.dpme.gov.za/keyfocusareas/cbmSite/Pages/default.aspx.
See National Institute of Statistics of the Plurinational State of Bolivia,
www.ine.gob.bo/indicadoresddhh/.
United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), “Count me in: surveying for tenure
security and urban land management” (2010), p. 7.
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