World's poor bearing the brunt of global crises, stresses UN rights expert
Impacts of climate change and the global economic crisis are compounding the threats faced by people living in poverty around the world, a United Nations rights expert warned, calling on the international development community to put human rights at the centre of their work.
“People in developing countries are paying a heavy price for global actions beyond their control,” said Saad Alfarargi, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to development, delivering his maiden report to the Human Rights Council – the highest intergovernmental forum in the UN system on rights issues.
“We are witnessing some of the greatest challenges the world has ever seen, without the global commitment to deliver change,” he added.
In a news release issued by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the UN expert stressed that even more than 30 years after the adoption of the Declaration on the Right to Development, many around the planet are still unaware of the existence of right to development, and it remains far from being universally recognized and even further from full implementation.
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