Professor Alan Miller

Professor Alan Miller is among four lead authors of the HRBA (Human Rights-Based Approach) To Development Programming Toolkit, which sets out how such an approach can be used as a “problem-solving” measure to deal with development challenges around the world and to pursue the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

The document is designed as a guide for UNDP country offices to enhance their delivery of development programmes and of achieving the SDGs, as well as the aim of “leaving no one behind”.

It proposes a framework called PLANET (Participation; Link; Accountability; Non-discrimination and equality; Empowerment and capacity development; Transparency) as a means of applying the human rights-based approach.   

Professor Miller acts as senior independent expert with the UNDP Crisis Bureau.

He said: “A human rights-based approach involves a ‘whole of society’ approach, where different interests around the table all have a stake in the matter, and you establish the framework in which sometimes competing sets of rights and interests are reconciled with one another. As a problem-solver, the toolkit can help to find an agreed way forward to enable sustainable development.. 

“It can also have a preventative role where things happening in a country could give rise to conflict, huge poverty or displacement of individuals and communities if the problems are not addressed.”  

The toolkit links to a matrix of recommendations made to member states, following the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of each UN member state’s human rights record.

Professor Miller is working with the Scottish government to develop proposals which may include the matrix as an element of a ‘tracker tool’ for measuring performance in implementing international human rights obligations and the potential to link these to relevant policy areas and SDGs.             

In their co-written foreword to the document, UNDP Assistant Secretaries-General Shoko Noda and Marcos Neto state: “Utilising HRBA in development programming can help UNDP improve how it delivers for populations and governments around the world.

“It can be an enabler of progress, engaging whole of societies, systems and unpacking development challenges whilst providing solutions pathways and helping us to anticipate, prevent and manage risks.

“At UNDP, we believe that human rights can be a preventive, protective and transformative force, guiding societies towards stability, prosperity and equality.” 

Professor Miller’s co-authors of the toolkit are UNDP officials Julie van Dassen, Sarah Rattray, and Seán O’Connell. Coordination and research support was provided by Arifur Rahman and Brian Migowe.

The University of Strathclyde is a signatory to the SDGs and was placed in the top 25 of Times Higher Education’s Impact Rankings 2024, which assessed the performances of nearly 2,000 universities worldwide against the SDGs.