<<previous  |  index  |  next>>

UNDP’s Mandate to Address Human Rights and Protection Issues

Every U.N. agency has a responsibility to promote and protect human rights.  According to the Preamble of the U.N. Charter, the U.N. was formed to:

Reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women...; [and] to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained; and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom. 

Although some U.N. agencies have expressly designated human rights mandates and possess specialized technical expertise in the area of human rights, this does not diminish the responsibility of all agencies to incorporate human rights concerns into their work.  Article 1(3) of the U.N. Charter includes a mission for all U.N. agencies to “promot[e] and encourag[e] respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.”  As Secretary-General Kofi Annan confirmed shortly after taking office, human rights constitute a part of development work.¹⁸ 

UNDP has a broadly defined mandate to promote sustainable human development.  Its work has traditionally been concentrated outside of conflict or emergency situations, partnering itself closely with governments, to administer or fund development programs.  It has never interpreted its role as formally including human rights work, either in a monitoring and reporting capacity or to include active measures to those in its charge.  Within the context of the growing number of major humanitarian emergencies, all U.N. agencies are being challenged to tailor their work to address the growing numbers of internal conflicts and the massive refugee and internally displaced flows.  Like other U.N. agencies, UNDP is grappling to stretch its traditional capacity in order to address the operational challenges posed by the exigencies of forced displacement.  This section does not provide a comprehensive critique of UNDP’s mandate.  It is meant to draw attention to certain developments and statements by UNDP that are directly relevant to its administration of programs for the internally displaced.

While situations of internal displacement can differ widely, the one common feature that all share is the central role that human rights plays.  Human rights abuses usually accompany the violence and displacement, and human rights protection issues are inevitably integral to the success of reconciliation and reintegration efforts.  Protection entails both physical security as well as defending the legal and human rights of the displaced.  Human rights abuses during the course of a reintegration program can undermine and eventually stall international efforts.  If U.N. agencies administering reintegration programs for the internally displaced marginalize or exclude human rights concerns, they will not succeed in their mission.

UNDP has taken up the challenge of interpreting its mandate more innovatively to respond to emergency situations, including internal displacement.¹⁹ Gradually, UNDP is expanding its traditional interpretation of its mandate to include work in crisis situations where it can “bridge relief with development.”²⁰ Being mandated to deal with “the entire development process,”²¹ it seeks to contribute in conflict or crisis situations where emergency relief and development opportunities overlap.  In this regard, it views programs for the internally displaced as a primary example of where it can contribute and envisions growing involvement in this area.

UNDP’s role was formally expanded in 1989 by the U.N. secretary-general to permit UNDP resident representatives based in the field, to be designated as U.N. resident coordinators in order to be the focal point for coordinating relief to internally displaced populations.²²  The following year, a General Assembly resolution assigned to U.N. resident coordinators “...the function of coordinating assistance to the internally displaced, in close cooperation with Governments, local representatives of donor countries and the United Nations agencies in the field.”²³  UNDP’s eight programmatic categories for emergency-type programs include “Area Rehabilitation to Resettle Uprooted Populations” which includes programs for the “resettlement and reintegration of displaced people.”  With regard to the internally displaced, UNDP has adopted a broad interpretation of its role as:

(a)        supporting development of the communities that the displaced have rejoined; and

(b)       facilitating joint planning of different interventions well beforehand, to ensure that development activities are synchronized with relief.  Quick post-return projects are followed by more complex action of continuing development and growing government and community involvement.  Since the fundamental socio-economic unit of reintegration is the household, attention to the specific needs of women is important.²⁴

According to UNDP, its programs for the internally displaced are “designed to revitalize commercial networks, foster local participation in decision-making, to restore social cohesion and link rehabilitation with development change.”²⁵  Another relevant category of UNDP’s emergency work to the internally displaced is that of “Rebuilding Institutions and Improving Governance,” which includes, among other things, the “coordination of capacity-building programmes; observance of human rights; and land reform and regulation of land tenure.”²⁶   

UNDP has recognized that human rights, governance, social justice and land reform are all important issues, within the ambit of its mandate, deserving of attention and critical to the successful implementation of emergency-type programs.  In response to the 1995 ECOSOC review of the capacity of the U.N. system in humanitarian assistance, UNDP articulated the evolving interpretation of its mandate in a February 1997 document.²⁷  In clarifying its role toward the internally displaced, UNDP’s vision of what factors are important to include in a program are strikingly similar to those that Human Rights Watch/Africa has identified in this report. 

UNDP formally acknowledges, in its February 1997 document, that its programs for the internally displaced must incorporate the issues of governance, social justice, human rights, land tenure and protection.  UNDP maintains that measures to strengthen various aspects of the capacity for governance are particularly important because “[s]uccessful recovery implies broad development challenges, meeting needs for adequate legal frameworks, judiciaries, police systems, stable social and political environments, and sufficient economic opportunities.”²⁸  It believes that “[s]ocial justice in general must be addressed in efforts to foster reconciliation,”²⁹ and that “[j]ustice and human rights is another important area with a critical development component.”³⁰  In the area of land reform and the regulation of land tenure, it recognizes that “within a limited framework, such as area rehabilitation schemes, considerable progress can be made with project assistance in securing titles for peasants.”³¹

Increasingly, there is also a recognition that protection responsibilities must be a part of programs for the internally displaced.  As part of the ongoing ECOSOC review, recommendations have been put forward jointly by the relevant agencies through the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) (whose membership includes UNDP Administrator Gustave Speth).  The April-May 1997 recommendations of the IASC to the U.N. secretary-general’s office recommend that UNDP resident representative/resident coordinators continue to assume responsibility for internally displaced programs where appropriate.  The recommendations go further, stating that the responsibilities of the resident representative/resident coordinator will include: “serving as an advocate for the assistance and protection of IDPs [internally displaced persons].”³²

It is unfortunate that many of these responsibilities which UNDP has recognized as being within its mandate as well as critical to the success of programs for the internally displaced were not applied in the Kenyan program.  In reading this report, which deals with a program administered between 1993 and 1995, it is important to recognize that some of UNDP’s current positions had not been articulated as clearly at that time.  Frederick Lyons, UNDP resident representative to Kenya pointed out:

Remember that in 1993, the U.N. mandate on the internally displaced was still being hammered out.  When David Whaley [former UNDP resident representative to Kenya] took over this project, it was a new area for the U.N.  For UNDP specifically, it was an evolution of our thinking about development issues and what that constituted in our work.  The project in Kenya should be seen as an early experience, warts and all, as being a half successful attempt to stabilize conditions and to raise the key issues and risks.  It was an early attempt for UNDP to find practical solutions to problems of this nature.³³  

UNDP deserves credit for its progress at the policy level to interpret its mandate progressively and more comprehensively since that time.  However, UNDP appears somewhat ambivalent about its recognition that human rights are central to the success of its emergency programs.  While acknowledging that human rights is an “important area with a critical development component,”³⁴ UNDP has balked at translating this unequivocal recognition of the importance of human rights into tangible program objectives within the agency.  Calling it a “pragmatic” approach, UNDP has shied away from making a strong commitment, preferring to see its contribution as complementing other U.N. bodies, such as the Centre for Human Rights.  UNDP also appears to be deterred by the prospect that in raising human rights issues it may encounter resistance from abusive or uncooperative governments.

...In the observance of human rights, which constitutes a critical factor for social peace and political legitimacy, UNDP is adopting a pragmatic strategy of approaching these issues in geographically limited settings.  Human rights is a matter of such central importance to society that tackling it head-on at the national level, even where clear legislation has been enacted, often creates serious problems.³⁵ 

Moreover, the progressive positions articulated in the ECOSOC document do not yet appear to be the only definitive interpretation that UNDP puts forward on human rights.  The response provided to Human Rights Watch/Africa in April 1997 to the draft of this report contained a disturbing position which appeared to contradict the above-stated policy positions, as well as Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s February 1997 comment that human rights is a part of development work.  UNDP, in its explanation of why the Kenyan program did not address human rights concerns, put forth the position that human rights is a “sovereign” issue which it has no mandate to deal with.  UNDP stated:

At no time did ...UNDP imply that it had the capacity or mandate to become the primary advocate against human rights violations in Kenya.  Much of the criticism contained in the HRW [Human Rights Watch] report is basically a misinformed commentary on UNDP’s ‘failure’ to be the international human rights monitor, arbitrator and advocate in Kenya during the crisis.  This indicates HRW’s misunderstanding of UNDP’s role and its limitations to engaging in ‘sovereign’ issues for which it has no mandate.  Instead of blaming UNDP for not solving the human rights problems in Kenya, the report should identify the link between human rights violations and the policy of the Government at that time.³⁶ 

Human Rights Watch/Africa is not calling on UNDP to be the primary advocate for all human rights violations taking place in Kenya or any other country.  Human Rights Watch/Africa does, and has in this report, identified the links between human rights violations and the Kenyan government.  However, that does not relieve UNDP of its obligations under the U.N. Charter—in programs that it is administering—to ensure that human rights and protection concerns are fully incorporated.