On 10 December 2021, AFD Group organized an international conference on "Human Rights and Development" that brought together 500 actors from the development community in the North and in the South.
 

All participants pointed out the retreat of human rights and the erosion of democracies around the world and stressed the central role of the human rights-based approach to achieving the 2030 Agenda. While recalling the universality and indivisibility of human rights, they demonstrated the importance of respecting the rights of populations in vulnerable situations (children, women, indigenous peoples). 
 

The contributions also dealt with the shrinking space of civil society, multidimensional inequalities and the duty of vigilance. They underlined the consequences of global warming, environmental destruction and the collapse of the natural world on the enjoyment of human rights, and the importance of an approach extended to the rights of all living things in order to ensure a just and sustainable transition. 
 

The conference showed that solutions do exist and underscored the fact that development actors have multiple avenues of action open to them in this area, irrespective of the sector of intervention.