S o u t he r n C hr i s t i an C ol l e g e

United Church of Christ in the Philippines

Midsayap, 9410 Cotabato

CO LLE G E O F S O CI AL W O RK

SW225 – SOCIAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES

MODULE 4: Approaches to Development

Overview

In this module, you will learn the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and
Comparative Highlights between human rights, charity and need-based approaches.

Topics:
1. Sustainable Development Goals
2. The Human Rights-Based Approach
- Charity approach
- Need-based approach

Learning Outcomes: At the end of this module, you will be able to discuss the different
approaches to development.

ELICIT:
Have you ever heard of the SDGs? What are SDGs all about?

ENGAGE:
What does sustainability mean to you?

EXPLORE: Please read and understand the topics below and answer the following assessments.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, were adopted
by all United Nations Member States in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty,
protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030.

The 17 SDGs are integrated—that is, they recognize that action in one area will affect
outcomes in others, and that development must balance social, economic and
environmental sustainability.

Through the pledge to Leave No One Behind, countries have committed to fast-track
progress for those furthest behind first. That is why the SDGs are designed to bring the
world to several life-changing ‘zeros’, including zero poverty, hunger, AIDS and
discrimination against women and girls.
SCC-College of Social Work
Excellence: Our Way of Life and Ministry
Everyone is needed to reach these ambitious targets. The creativity, knowhow, technology
and financial resources from all of society is necessary to achieve the SDGs in every
context.

What is UNDP's role?

As the lead UN development agency, UNDP is well-placed to help implement the Goals
through our work in some 170 countries and territories.

We support countries in achieving the SDGs through integrated solutions. Today’s complex
challenges—from stemming the spread of disease to preventing conflict—cannot be tackled
neatly in isolation. For UNDP, this means focusing on systems, root causes and
connections between challenges—not just thematic sectors—to build solutions that
respond to people’s daily realities.

Our track record working across the Goals provides us with a valuable experience and
proven policy expertise to ensure we all reach the targets set out in the SDGs by 2030. But
we cannot do this alone.

Achieving the SDGs requires the partnership of governments, private sector, civil society
and citizens alike to make sure we leave a better planet for future generations.

Background on the goals

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were born at the United Nations Conference on
Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. The objective was to produce a set of
universal goals that meet the urgent environmental, political and economic challenges
facing our world.

The SDGs replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which started a global effort
in 2000 to tackle the indignity of poverty. The MDGs established measurable, universally -
agreed objectives for tackling extreme poverty and hunger, preventing deadly diseases,
and expanding primary education to all children, among other development priorities.

For 15 years, the MDGs drove progress in several important areas: reducing income
poverty, providing much needed access to water and sanitation, driving down child
mortality and drastically improving maternal health. They also kick-started a global
movement for free primary education, inspiring countries to invest in their future
generations. Most significantly, the MDGs made huge strides in combatting HIV/AIDS and
other treatable diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis.

Key MDG achievements

• More than 1 billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty (since 1990)
• Child mortality dropped by more than half (since 1990)
• The number of out of school children has dropped by more than half (since 1990)
• HIV/AIDS infections fell by almost 40 percent (since 2000)

The legacy and achievements of the MDGs provide us with valuable lessons and experience
to begin work on the new goals. But for millions of people around the world the job
remains unfinished. We need to go the last mile on ending hunger, achieving full gender
equality, improving health services and getting every child into school beyond primary. The
SDGs are also an urgent call to shift the world onto a more sustainable path.

The SDGs are a bold commitment to finish what we started, and tackle some of the more
pressing challenges facing the world today. All 17 Goals interconnect, meaning success in
one affects success for others. Dealing with the threat of climate change impacts how we
manage our fragile natural resources, achieving gender equality or better health helps
eradicate poverty, and fostering peace and inclusive societies will reduce inequalities and
help economies prosper. In short, this is the greatest chance we have to improve life for
future generations.

The SDGs coincided with another historic agreement reached in 2015 at the COP21 Paris
Climate Conference. Together with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction,
signed in Japan in March 2015, these agreements provide a set of common standards and
achievable targets to reduce carbon emissions, manage the risks of climate change and
natural disasters, and to build back better after a crisis.

The SDGs are unique in that they cover issues that affect us all. They reaffirm our
international commitment to end poverty, permanently, everywhere. They are ambitious in
making sure no one is left behind. More importantly, they involve us all to build a more
sustainable, safer, more prosperous planet for all humanity.

17 Sustainable Development Goals

1. No Poverty: End poverty in all its forms everywhere

2. Zero Hunger: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote
sustainable agriculture
3. Good Health and Well-Being: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all
ages
4. Quality Education: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote
lifelong learning opportunities for all
5. Gender Equality: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
6. Clean Water and Sanitation: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water
and sanitation for all
7. Affordable and Clean Energy: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and
modern energy for all
8. Decent Work and Economic Work: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable
economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive
and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
10. Reduced Inequality: Reduce inequality within and among countries
11. Sustainable Cities and Communities: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe,
resilient and sustainable
12. Responsible Consumption and Production: Ensure sustainable consumption and
production patterns
13. Climate Action: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
14. Life Below Water: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine
resources for sustainable development
15. Life on Land: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems,
sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land
degradation and halt biodiversity loss
16. Peace and Justice Strong Institutions: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for
sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective,
accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
17. Partnerships for the Goals: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the
global partnership for sustainable development.

The Human Rights-Based Approach

The equal and inalienable rights of all human beings provide the foundation for freedom,
justice and peace in the world, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948.

What is a human rights based approach to development?

➢ A human rights-based approach is about empowering people to know and claim their
rights and increasing the ability and accountability of individuals and institutions who are
responsible for respecting, protecting and fulfilling rights.
➢ This means giving people greater opportunities to participate in shaping the decisions that
impact on their human rights. It also means increasing the ability of those with
responsibility for fulfilling rights to recognise and know how to respect those rights, and
make sure they can be held to account.
➢ A human rights-based approach is about ensuring that both the standards and the
principles of human rights are integrated into policymaking as well as the day to day
running of organisations.

Comparative Highlights between Human rights, Charity and Need-based approaches

Rights holders and duty bearers

➢ Individuals and communities need to be fully informed about their rights and to participate
in decisions that affect them.
➢ The rights-based approach deals not just with outcomes but also with how those outcomes
are achieved.
➢ It recognizes that people are actors in their own development, rather than passive
recipients of services. Informing, educating and empowering them is essential.
➢ Their participation is central, not only to ensure they have ownership over the programme,
but also to sustain progress.

A rights-based approach develops the capacity of duty-bearers to meet their obligations and
encourages rights holders to claim their rights.
Governments have three levels of obligation:
➢ To respect a right means refraining from interfering with the enjoyment of the right.
➢ To protect a right means to prevent other parties from interfering with the enjoyment of
rights.
➢ To fulfil a right means to take active steps to put in place, laws, policies, institutions and
procedures, including the allocation of resources, to enable people to enjoy their rights.

The PANEL principles

Participation
Everyone has the right to participate in decisions which affect their human rights. Participation
must be active, free, meaningful and give attention to issues of accessibility, including access
to information in a form and a language which can be understood.

Accountability
Accountability requires effective monitoring of human rights standards as well as effective
remedies for human rights breaches.
For accountability to be effective there must be appropriate laws, policies, institutions,
administrative procedures and mechanisms of redress in order to secure human rights.

Non-discrimination and equality

A human rights-based approach means that all forms of discrimination in the realisation of
rights must be prohibited, prevented and eliminated. It also requires the prioritisation of those
in the most marginalised situations who face the biggest barriers to realising their rights.

Empowerment of rights holders

A human rights-based approach means that individuals and communities should know their
rights. It also means that they should be fully supported to participate in the development of
policy and practices which affect their lives and to claim rights where necessary.

Legality of rights
A human rights-based approach requires the recognition of rights as legally enforceable
entitlements and is linked in to national and international human rights law.

EXPLAIN:
Among the 17 SDGs, in your opinion, which goal is most important to you? Why?
ELABORATE:
As a future social worker, how do you apply rights-based approach to your client?

EVALUATE:
Identify what is asked in the following statements. Write your answer on the space provided
before each number.
_____ 1. The lead agency that implements the 17 SGDs
_____ 2. What year is the17 SDGs will end?
_____ 3. This PANEL principle requires effective monitoring of human rights standards as
well as effective remedies for human rights breaches
_____ 4. An approach that sees individuals are object of development interventions
_____ 5. This approach recognizes moral responsibility of rich towards poor
_____ 6. This means giving people greater opportunities to participate in shaping the
decisions that impact on their human rights
_____ 7. An approach that sees individuals are entitled to assistance
_____ 8. This approach focuses on immediate causes of problem
_____ 9. It also means that they should be fully supported to participate in the development of
policy and practices which affect their lives and to claim rights where necessary
_____ 10. What year MDGs started the global effort to tackle the indignity of poverty?

EXTEND:
Our next module is titled Social Movements & its Impact, Please read in advance the handouts
which I will be sharing with you in our Google classroom.

REFERENCES:

1. Integrating the Human Right to Water and Sanitation in Development Practice. (2014)
Retrieved March 8, 2020, from www.waterlex.org/waterlex-toolkit/what-is-a-human-
rights-based-approach-and-how-is-it-different-from-other-development-practices/

2. Sustainable Development Goals (2020). Retrieved September 19, 2020, from United
Nations Development Programme:
https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-
goals.html#:~:text=The%20Sustainable%20Development%20Goals%20(SDGs,peace%20an
d%20prosperity%20by%202030.

3. The Human Rights-Based Approach. (Updated 24 November 2014) Retrieved March 8, 2020,
from https://www.unfpa.org/human-rights-based-approach

4. What is a human rights based approach? (n.d.) Retrieved March 8, 2020, from
http://careaboutrights.scottishhumanrights.com/whatisahumanrightsbasedapproach.html