International Human Rights Day, 10 December 2006  7 December 2006
  Message by Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon
  Each of us possesses an instinct for what is just. The global commitment to 'make poverty history' is not made simply out of charity or pity. Tackling poverty is not only an urgent economic or development imperative: it is more fundamental and compelling than that. It is a question of human rights and of justice, and of making real the inherent dignity and worth of every human person. 
  The Commonwealth welcomes the focus on 'Poverty' as the theme for International Human Rights Day 2006, on Sunday 10 December. No other single phenomenon exposes the indefensible gap that exists between the standards of universally accepted human rights, and the actual experiences of millions of people in their daily lives. We should know: of the one in five people on this planet living in abject poverty, some 80% are in the Commonwealth.
  Wherever there is a denial of basic human rights, there is poverty. So it is that those facing violations - such as the systematic discrimination still faced by so many women, and particularly in the developing world - are unable to contribute either to their own society or to their own advancement. In turn, those living in poverty are usually the least able to access and enjoy their rights: to education, to healthcare, to food and shelter, and to being counted and treated as individual human beings.
  Recognition of these unacceptable denials - both of the means and the rights of living - informs the Commonwealth approach, and underlies its ongoing work. In all our programmes - whether giving opportunities to women and young people, supporting poorer countries' attempts to trade their way out of poverty, and helping to bring about basic education and healthcare for all - we are bound and guided by the commitment of Commonwealth member governments to making rights meaningful for people wherever they may live, and especially when they live in poverty. 
  This year's Nobel Prize was awarded to a Commonwealth national, Professor Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. His remarkable efforts to help the most marginalised women in his society lift themselves out of poverty, both exemplifies and inspires the Commonwealth approach. It's about working to make people, in particular women and the young, actors in their own development. It's about looking for and launching what Professor Yunus has called 'the entrepreneur within each of us'. It is about helping people to live with pride and dignity, to know and demand their rights, and to make their rightful contribution to society.
  The Commonwealth approach is not about unreasonable expectations, but about legitimate entitlements. This translates first and foremost as a duty on governments. That duty can start with governments taking the simple, visible step of ratifying the two 40-year old UN Covenants which give formal expression to social and economic, civil and political rights. These Covenants give real shape and momentum to national efforts to reduce poverty and respect human rights, and I am hopeful that those few Commonwealth countries which are yet to ratify them will soon do so. There is no priority between rights, and no purpose in fine arguments about such things. There is only the first duty of any government: to provide for the well-being of the people it represents and to whom it is accountable. First among these are the poor. 
  As we mark this year's Human Rights Day, Commonwealth Education Ministers - along with teachers, civil society organisations and business people - are meeting in South Africa. They do so sharing our belief that universal and equal access for boys and girls to primary education is a fundamental human right, and not just a development goal. Because two-thirds of the 115 million children who never go to school live are in the Commonwealth. Our discussions in Cape Town are based on the fact that education and training, and so the true empowerment of individuals, are critical to making poverty history. They also answer to our deepest sense of what is right.
  I am proud to be part of a Commonwealth which, by its shared and public commitment to human rights, helped to consign apartheid to history. Speaking in London for last year's 'Make Poverty History' campaign, former South African President Nelson Mandela said that poverty (like apartheid) is not natural: it is something man-made. And so it can be overcome and unmade by our actions and decisions. 
  On International Human Rights Day and across the Commonwealth, it has long ago ceased to be a question of 'what needs to be done?' about poverty. The needs, the rights, and the undeniable duties are all clear. We need only the will, the leadership at all levels, to act on our human sense of justice.

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