Human rights, health and poverty reduction strategies

This booklet, Human Rights, Health and Poverty Reduction Strategies, applies to the health sector a framework that has been articulated as the human rights approach to poverty reduction. It builds upon work done by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and others who conceptualized this human rights approach. We hope it will highlight the critical synergies among good practices in public health, human rights principles, and sound development policy. Indeed, since this booklet is targeted primarily at health policy-makers in countries that are in the process of developing, reviewing or updating a poverty reduction strategy, it contains examples of "good practices" throughout. These are intended to demonstrate how human rights principles have been operationalized in the various stages of developing a poverty reduction strategy, from initial analysis to design of the content, and from implementation of the plan to monitoring and evaluation. The examples are also meant to inspire similar actions and initiatives in the future.