ICESCR concluding observations 2025, paragraph 17
Plain English recommendation
Government should reintroduce its target of giving 0.7% of its national income as official development assistance (spending on international aid and development to other countries). Government should also:
(a) Improve how it checks if development assistance projects affect people’s rights under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in the countries where those projects are based, especially their rights to fair working conditions, a good standard of living, health and education. Government should know about this impact before it makes decisions over which projects to fund;
(b) Create a system for checking how policies and projects affect human rights in countries receiving development assistance and take steps to prevent or fix any problems;
(c) Ensure development assistance programmes it funds help countries to meet their human rights responsibilities, especially in ensuring access to free, good quality primary and secondary education, and high-quality and affordable health care.
Original UN recommendation
The Committee encourages the State Party to reattain its official development assistance target of 0.7 per cent of its gross national income as soon as possible and urges the State Party:
(a) To strengthen the measures designed to analyse the impact that operations funded by development assistance institutions have on the enjoyment of Covenant rights in recipient countries, in particular the rights to just and favourable conditions of work and an adequate standard of living, health and education prior to their decisions;
(b) To establish a regular monitoring mechanism to assess the human rights impact of policies and projects in recipient countries and take preventive or corrective actions where necessary;
(c) To ensure that its official development assistance programmes prioritize supporting recipient countries in meeting their obligations under the Covenant, especially in guaranteeing to everyone access to free, quality, primary and secondary education and high-quality and affordable health care.
Date of UN examination
12/03/2025
Original UN document
Download the original ICESCR concluding observations 2025 on the UN website.
Last updated on 21/08/2025