Mounting debt repayments and unequal trade arrangements are squeezing human rights and human dignity out of public budgets and depriving millions of essential services, UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Awa Dabo has said, marking the 40th anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to Development, NewsFirst reported.

“Development is a human right,” Dabo said, noting that states formally recognised the principle when they adopted the Declaration four decades ago.

When governments are forced to spend heavily on servicing debt instead of hospitals, schools and public infrastructure, she said, the damage can persist for generations.

Two numbers, set side by side

Dabo put two trends against each other. Global development aid budgets have fallen by nearly a quarter this year alone. Over the same broad period, arms sales by the world’s largest defence companies have doubled in real terms over the past two decades — an imbalance in global priorities, as she described it.

She said climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss are compounding the pressure on countries least equipped to respond, and called for a fairer international system in which all states have an equal voice in decision-making and equitable access to financing. Development cooperation should be strengthened rather than weakened, she said.

Sri Lanka’s answer

Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative in Geneva, Ambassador Sumith Dassanayake, told the 63rd session of the Human Rights Council that development should never be treated as charity, NewsFirst reported separately. The Declaration made clear 40 years ago that development is not a privilege granted through generosity but an inalienable right, he said — yet its full realisation remains distant for many developing countries.

Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals continues to lag as countries face shrinking development assistance, unsustainable debt, climate shocks and a widening digital divide, all of which narrow the policy space of low- and middle-income economies, he said.

Dassanayake said economic recovery remains central to Sri Lanka’s approach, citing the Aswesuma and Praja Shakthi programmes as social protection measures, and said the country remains committed to sharing the benefits of development despite Cyclone Ditwah, global instability and supply chain disruption. National effort alone cannot overcome entrenched global inequalities, he added.

Context

The two officials last appeared opposite each other at the same session on 8 September, when Dabo delivered the UN’s country update on Sri Lanka and Dassanayake replied for Colombo. Monday’s exchange was on a separate agenda item.

It is the second time this week a UN body has put borrowing costs at the centre of the development debate: UNCTAD’s debt branch head Penelope Hawkins described a “sovereignty premium” of two to three percentage points paid by governments that borrow at home rather than abroad.

Not reported

NewsFirst does not place Dabo’s remarks at a named forum or session, give the baseline against which the near-quarter fall in aid budgets is measured, or identify the defence companies or the source of the arms-sales comparison. It does not report whether Sri Lanka made any specific proposal on debt relief or development financing, or what other states said in the debate. Both accounts come from the same newsroom; no other verified outlet had filed on either statement at the time of writing.