This paper examines the interplay between the obligations related to the ‘family’ that States have assumed through various human rights treaties adopted over the decades, and the recent commitments undertaken under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. International human rights instruments recognize the ‘family; as the fundamental unit of society...

Social protection programmes require processing significant data amounts, including often-sensitive information such as household assets, health status and physical or intellectual disabilities. Increasingly, social protection programmes use unique, intimate biometric-technology data such as fingerprints, iris structure and face topologies. Inextricably linked to the individual body, they are more sensitive...

Recent years have witnessed the significant expansion of social protection programmes around the world. Yet, a vast number of poor and vulnerable people, including children, women, ethnic minorities, and persons with disabilities, remain uncovered, especially in lower-income countries. This article argues that a better understanding of the principle of...

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 asserts that social security is an inalienable human right. Realizing this human right is often considered, simply, as a matter of political will and of administrative aptitude. In these terms, the progressive realization of the human right to social...

While the SDGs are a significant improvement over the Millennium Development Goals, including in their commitments to gender equality and women’s rights, there is no major advance when it comes to accountability: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides only for a weak and voluntary process of “follow-up and...

Unpaid care work is a critical human rights issue, as well as a major obstacle to gender equality and poverty reduction. This article draws attention to the impact of heavy, intensive, and unequal burdens of unpaid care work on the human rights of women living in poverty, and analyses...

This article argues that the effects of the crises themselves are being compounded rather than relieved by the measures that many governments are taking in response. These are seriously threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions of the poorest people, and are having a devastating effect on their enjoyment of...

These Principles are the first global policy guidelines focused specifically on the human rights of people living in poverty. They are intended for use by governments to ensure that public policies, including poverty eradication efforts, reach the poorest members of society, respect and uphold their rights, and take into account...

People living in poverty face numerous daunting barriers to access to justice, denying them the chance to challenge crimes, abuses or human rights violations committed against them. This situation exacerbates their poverty and social exclusion, in a vicious circle of impunity, powerlessness and injustice. Empowering people living in poverty...

In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights presents fiscal policy, and particularly taxation policies, as a major determinant in the enjoyment of human rights. Taxation is a key tool when tackling inequality and for generating the resources necessary for poverty reduction and the...

This report focuses on the right to participation of people living in poverty. Participation is a basic human right in itself, a precondition or catalyst for the realization and enjoyment of other human rights, and of fundamental importance in empowering people living in poverty to tackle inequalities and asymmetries of...

This report provides recommendations on how to ensure that non-contributory pensions comply with core human rights standards. It also addresses the role of international assistance and cooperation in the field of social...

This report sets out to elaborate and promote a human rights framework for social protection, identifying best practices and disseminating lessons learned. It provides an in-depth analysis of the application of central human rights principles of the human rights framework – equality and non-discrimination (including accessibility, acceptability, affordability and the incorporation...

Summary: Over recent years, social protection strategies have rapidly gained striking political support and widespread acceptance in development discourse and practice. However, although development actors generally acknowledge that human rights should play an essential role in poverty reduction, there has been a lack of deep analysis of the implications...

This report addresses the impact of the current global financial crisis on people living in extreme poverty and the enjoyment of their human rights. It stresses that the crisis offers an opportunity to move beyond the restructuring of the global financial and monetary systems and to place people at the...

Summary The present report highlights the importance of social protection measures in the Millennium Development Goals agenda. It also stresses that social protection measures designed, implemented and evaluated within the framework of a rights-based approach are more likely to ensure the achievement of the Goals and to result in...

The report focuses on a number of flagship programmes, including the Tekoporã conditional cash transfer programme, the Abrazo (“hug”) Programme and the Family Health Units Programme. The report recognizes that major strides have been made in the area of rights-based public policy planning. It also reviews the achievements of the social protection...

While acknowledging the compounded challenges faced by Namibia – including limited institutional capacity, and the fact that Namibia has one of the world’s lowest population densities – this report concludes that progress has not been fast enough. There are still unacceptable levels of inequality along the lines of gender, race,...

The Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights conducted an official visit to Mongolia from 3 to 7 December 2012, during which she collected first-hand information on the situation of people living in extreme poverty and on the impact of key policies relating to poverty alleviation and development...

Seventy-five to eighty per cent of the world’s poor do not have comprehensive social protection, yet the total costs of introducing social protection would amount to only 2-6 per cent of global GDP. Poorer States often have not adopted social protection systems because a) the development models supported by...

In the present report, the United Nations Independent Expert on human rights and extreme poverty sets out the parameters of a human rights-based approach to recovery from the global economic and financial crises, with a particular focus on the most vulnerable and marginalized groups. She urges States to see...

This report focuses on cash transfer programmes (CTPs) from a human rights perspective. CTPs are non-contributory programmes  providing payments in the form of cash to individuals or households. The primary objective of  CTPs is to increase the real income of beneficiaries in order to enable a minimum level of  consumption within...

In the report, the Independent Expert on water and sanitation highlights the problems relating to sanitation, water quality and availability, and menstrual hygiene. The Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty focuses on social protection programmes for education, women, older persons, emergency relief and decent work, and points out the challenges...