Brainstorming on human rights yields fruitful ideas

“Human rights as a way of life. A new future for humanity.” That’s the vision of Shulamith Koenig, shared during a 12 May brainstorming session on human rights and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, is composed of 17 SDGs and 169 targets to eliminate extreme poverty, fight inequality and tackle climate change over the next 15 years..

Koenig, founder of the People's Movement for Human Rights Learning (PDHRE), joined more than 50 other representatives from UN agencies, diplomatic missions, civil society and academia for the event, held in New York.

Co-organized by UNICEF, the World Council of Churches (WCC), the PDHRE, and EU Delegation to the United Nations in New York, the brainstorming session was designed to kickstart a longer-term process of engagement at local, regional and global levels on the implementation of the SDGs.

The event was entitled “United for Dignity - Making SDG Progress Everybody's Business: exploring the Role of Human Rights Learning in Enabling and Empowering Local Action.”

Key points included the pivotal role of Agenda 2030 in building a world in which the dignity of all people is known, recognized and respected; freedom from fear and want is enlarged; and extreme inequality reversed. Participants highlighted the need to intensify human rights learning and the importance of accountability.

The "Torch of Dignity,” a civil society initiative that encourages communities to “light a torch for human rights” as the torch is lit for the 2016 Olympic games, drew favorable responses from many participants as an example of a successfully rallying point for human rights.

Rudelmar Bueno de Faria, WCC representative to the UN, said human dignity in sustainable communities is also the foundational purpose and objective of the SDGs. “So even though there is little direct reference in the SDGs to human rights, human dignity is the principle that binds human rights and the SDGs together, and the basis on which we support and are engaged in both from the perspective of or faith commitment,” he said.

For UNICEF’s Olav Kjorven, the brainstorming event was a place to start building an alternative to the current relative lack of focus and dedicated support for social mobilization.

“We need something new, something that does not yet exist at the global level, something that would make sense from the perspective of communities in terms of being useful for them,” he said.