HRIA Conference 2007 [Pre-Conference Announcement]
Health Rights
The health sector has a long standing experience with impact measurement and the use of indicators. However, rights based health impact assessments and corresponding health rights indicators are a fairly recent development. Several tools have been developed to analyse policies regarding reproductive rights (ICW and WHO), women’s health rights (Aim for human rights) and the right to health and health care at country level (PHM), amongst others. These can be found in the Tools section of this website.
Most of these tools have moved from the development and testing phase to the implementation phase. This poses new challenges, such as how to ensure that the tools are actually used by organizations, and how/in which ways to involve government policy makers so that they accept and implement the recommendations for a rights based approach. The Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Paul Hunt, points out another challenge: realizing that governments have their limitations, which trade-offs are permissible and impermissible from the perspective of the right to health?
These dilemmas will form the basis for two workshops that aim to assist participants in deciding on appropriate strategies and choices in relation to their situation.
Workshop 2 (Thursday afternoon): From development to implementation: challenges and strategies
The participants will exchange experiences on issues related to, amongst others, the dissemination of tools, the capacity of implementing organizations to work with the tools, participation of grass roots organizations and policy makers. They will discuss strategies to set up sustainable ways of training and supporting organizations in the use of health rights impact assessments. This includes dealing with challenges such as lack of budget and time that make it difficult for organizations to actually use health rights assessment tools into their work .
Workshop 3 (Friday morning): Trade-offs: seeking the balance between human rights demands and the reality of limited capacity
The Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Paul Hunt[1] asks for attention to a difficult question which the health and human rights movement faces: “when formulating health policies, which trade-offs are permissible and impermissible from the perspective of the right to health? Given finite budgets, how should ministers of health prioritize, in a manner that is respectful of the right to health, amongst competing objectives?" Closely linked to the issue of trade-offs is the question of how to deal with indicators and benchmarks. They help to monitor the implementation of human rights, but developing and working with health rights indicators and benchmarks again involves difficult choices. These include how to prioritize, and which benchmarks are acceptable.
[1] 2006 report to the HRC (a/HRC/4/28, paragraphs 29). See http://www2.essex.ac.uk/human_rights_centre/rth/docs/CHR%202006.pdf