Doing the Rights Thing - Rights-Based Development and Latin American NGOs

What is 'rights-based development' and how is it practiced in different contexts? This book looks at the origins of rights-based approaches (RBA) and how they have been understood and applied in Latin America. NGOs working with women and indigenous people in Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua and Bolivia have found the approach useful. This is because RBA links the principles of democracy to participation and empowerment and gives legitimacy to the claims to resources (economic, political, judicial and social) made by low income and disempowered groups. Under RBA people are viewed as agents of change and their relationship to those working in development moves from 'beneficiary' to 'user'. Rights-based development is best seen as an underlying philosophy which envelopes economic, social and cultural as well as civil and political rights. It is most successful when it responds to the priorities of locally-based democratic movements and groups.