Human rights-based accountability for sexual and reproductive health and rights in humanitarian settings
Findings from a pilot study in northern Uganda co-authored by Center professionals.

Center for Reproductive Rights staff members Grady Arnott, Manager of Legal Research for Global Advocacy, and Beatrice Odallo, Advocacy Advisor for Africa, co-authored a peer-reviewed article published in PLOS Global Public Health Journal examining the methodology of a pilot program to improve the delivery of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) services at one of Uganda’s largest refugee settlements. Charles Otema, Godfrey Obalim, Teddy Nakubulwa, and Sam B. T. Okello of CARE International also co-authored the paper.
The pilot program, implemented with CARE International at the Pagirinya settlement in Adjumani, combined a human rights-based approach with community-led mechanisms to establish an accountability system for SRHR violations.
“Ensuring accountability for the realization of sexual and reproductive health and rights is a human rights obligation and central tenet of strategies to improve health systems and outcomes in humanitarian settings,” wrote the authors. “This pilot study explored the feasibility and acceptability of deploying human rights strategies, specifically through a participatory community-led complaints mechanism, to hold humanitarian health systems to account for the sexual and reproductive health and rights of refugee and host community women and girls in northern Uganda.”