Education, Training and Research Key to Developing Human Rights

"Human rights is a necessary component of development."

Delegates who met at the Commonwealth Workshop on the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders for Africa held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 7 to 10 September 2004, emphasised the importance of education, training and research to develop human rights awareness.

The 50 delegates from 18 Commonwealth African countries said this can be done by incorporating human rights into the school curricula and through human rights training for government officials, particularly in police academies and for prison officers. They noted the need to enhance the role of human rights non-governmental organisations and national institutions in contributing to public awareness of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The participants at the workshop organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat encouraged governments, national institutions and human rights organisations to disseminate and raise public awareness of the 1998 UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.

They called on Commonwealth African states that have yet to set up national human rights institutions to initiate or expedite, where relevant, the establishment of national institutions to promote human rights. The delegates, who comprised representatives of human rights NGOs, national human rights institutions and government, urged governments in Africa to ratify international human rights treaties, remove reservations to treaties ratified by them and comply with treaty body reporting obligations. They advocated the need to bring domestic laws into conformity with international conventions and standards. Delegates stressed the importance of engagement between governments, national human rights institutions and NGOs before and during Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings to exchange views on issues of concern on human rights.

Hanif Vally, Head of the Secretariat's Human Rights Unit, said: "Human rights is a necessary component of development. Governments and civil society should work together to promote human rights so that nations and their peoples can achieve fundamental human rights, especially socio-economic rights.

"We should remind ourselves of some of the UN Millennium Development Goals our countries have committed themselves to achieve in 2015. These include halving the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and those who suffer from hunger. To ensure that all boys and girls complete primary school, to eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015. There is the aim to reduce by two-thirds the mortality rate among children under five, and reduce by three-quarters the ratio of women dying in childbirth. These are eminently achievable, provided that there is political will and the allocation of sufficient resources to tackle these issues."

Participants called on human rights defenders to jointly formulate programmes of action, including the accompanying of investigators or rapporteurs from national institutions on field visits, investigations and monitoring missions. They also requested the Secretariat to facilitate interaction between Commonwealth associations to help strengthen peer networks in the promotion of human rights.