Democratic Governance

Protecting and Promoting the Universal Values of Human Rights and Rule of Law
The justice sector programme of UNDP is concerned with the independence, impartiality and fairness of judges, legal literacy, legal aid, pro-poor laws and civic participation in legal and judicial reform. Key features of the work of UNDP in the area of human rights and human security include: support to the development of national human rights action plans; application of the rights-based approach to programming; assistance for human rights initiatives involving civic education, awareness-raising campaigns, strengthening or creation of ombudsman offices and extension of human rights institutions to the sub-national level.

In crisis countries, UNDP addresses security sector and transitional justice reform in a holistic manner to ensure physical security, equity, due process, maintenance of public order and enforcement of the rule of law. To achieve these outcomes, UNDP promotes and supports the strengthening of justice and security sector policy and activities. The human rights-based approach to development is an inter-agency concern in which UNDP:

• Reflects the full mandate of the United Nations for peace, security and human development (and is alone among United Nations agencies in doing so) into which human rights considerations can be mainstreamed
• Considers the lack of access to justice as a defining characteristic of human poverty, a challenge to be overcome through rights-based approaches
• Coordinates among United Nations agencies, thus enabling it to introduce rights-based approaches throughout United Nations country teams in support of the Secretary General's Action 2 Reform Programme (2004), a global programme designed to equip UN interagency country teams to work with Member States, at their request, to bolster their national human rights promotion and protection systems.