"At the dawn of the new millennium, human rights and development are at a crossroads. On the one hand, the congruence between human rights and development theory has never been more striking. Poverty and inequities between and within countries are now the gravest human rights concerns that we face. As the Secretary-General underscored in his 2005 reform report “In larger freedom”, the challenges of human rights, development and security are so closely entwined that none can be tackled effectively in isolation.

United Nations agencies have gone a considerable way towards reflecting these realities in practice, including through defining a common understanding of a humanrights-based approach to development cooperation, embodied within the United Nations common programming guidelines. And at the World Summit in September 2005, United Nations Member States gave an unprecedented political imprimatur and impetus to the Organization’s efforts to bring human rights to the front and centre of all its work, a shared commitment that through my 2005 “Plan of action” I am determined to support. (...).".