The rights-based approach to development: Potential for change or more of the same?

Abstract

This article discusses the implications of the adoption of rights-based approaches (RBAs) to development by the UN and its agencies, bilateral development agencies and international development NGOs. While this has allowed human rights language into the world of development programming, a development which has been met with much approval, sceptical voices argue that the development industry has taken the high-minded concerns of human rights instruments and moulded them to its own purposes and that not much is likely to change in policies and programmes. Given the critique of the RBA on grounds of its refusal to interrogate economic liberalisation, its implied reliance on the legal apparatus and its exaggerated claims, it is open to question whether it will deliver development based on human rights. The concerns raised about the RBA signal the need for caution on the part of feminists, especially in the light of how the development industry has digested previous analyses and approaches.