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PUTTING DEVELOPMENT TO RIGHTSsocial groups and improving the conditions of the worst off. Progress wouldbe greatly aided and incentivised by disaggregating national and internationaldata, making it possible to measure policy impact on different social,income, and age groups.• Prompting action to address root causes of poverty—such as inequality, discrimination,and exclusion—by requiring legal and policy reforms and challengingpatterns of abuse, as well as harmful cultural practices like childmarriage. Governments and donors should be obliged in a new developmentframework to bring their policies and practices into line with internationalstandards on non-discrimination and equality. Concerted action is alsoneeded to tackle formal, informal, and cultural barriers that prevent women,ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and indigenous peoples in particularfrom owning and having equal access to land, property, assets, andcredit; inheriting and transferring property; and accessing education andhealth services.• Making people agents and not subjects of development by emphasisingempowerment, participation, transparency, the rule of law, and access tojustice. A rights approach requires that poor people are fully consultedabout development projects or programs that affect them. Indigenous peoples,for example, have the right to give or withhold consent to developmentprojects on their traditional lands before they are approved and after receivingall relevant information. Such safeguards would help prevent the kind ofabusive, environmentally harmful patterns of development already cited. Butabusive development also occurs in places like China because basic civiland political freedoms are not respected more generally and because thelegal system is politicized and discriminatory. Commitments to civil andpolitical rights should be integral to the post-2015 development agenda,including to freedom of speech, assembly, and association, the ability ofpeople to participate in free elections, and access to fair and effective justicesystems. Transparency and free flow of information are critical too, creatingspace for informed debate about use of the national budget, exposingmistakes and environmental harm, and allowing communities to mobilize forsocial change and redress for abuse and malpractice.37