Over the course of the 1990s governments, policy makers, NGOs and practitioners concerned with poverty alleviation increasingly sought to integrate rights into their practice in a broad range of contexts and countries. The term "rights based development" was coined to describe these efforts. Development agencies such as the UN and the World Bank, along with many NGOs and governments, have sought to promote a common understanding of what rights-based priorities entailed for their work. However there is still limited understanding of how such approaches are being worked out in practice and how they are understood in different socio-cultural contexts.

Molyneux is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas, School of Advanced Study, University of London.