Human rights and development

Margot Skarpeteig argues that the principles of human rights can (and should) guide development practice.

About the speaker:
Margot Skarpeteig is an expert on human rights, and the interrelatedness and interdependence of human rights, focusing in particular on the right to food, the right to education, women’s rights and human rights-based approaches to development. She has also specialized in international development cooperation, humanitarian response, accountability to affected populations, empowerment and food security.

Initially trained as a geographer, Skarpeteig holds an M.Phil. in political geography based on fieldwork in India and has carried out research and reviews in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Nepal and India. She has published extensively within the fields of development, international cooperation, human rights and education.

Since 2005, she has been a part-time lecturer in human rights and development at the University of Oslo, and she has previously worked as a researcher at Agder Research and the University of Bergen. She has tested theoretical perspectives in real life, among others as a diplomat in human rights and democracy in Ethiopia, as Asia coordinator of the Norwegian Human Rights Fund, as policy director for human rights in Norad (The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation) and, currently, as the deputy permanent representative to the UN Agencies in Rome. In her current position, she has placed and strengthened human rights including women’s rights and the right to food on the agenda in the World Food Programme, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

Skarpeteig stresses the importance of listening to people living in poverty as an important supplement and corrective to theoretical insights.