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must involve effective community action in setting priorities, making decisions, planning,
implementing and evaluating strategies to achieve better health. Effective provision of health
services can only be assured if people’s participation is secured by States.
55.
The national health strategy and plan of action should also be based on the principles of
accountability, transparency and independence of the judiciary, since good governance is
essential to the effective implementation of all human rights, including the realization of the right
to health. In order to create a favourable climate for the realization of the right, States parties
should take appropriate steps to ensure that the private business sector and civil society are aware
of, and consider the importance of, the right to health in pursuing their activities.
56.
States should consider adopting a framework law to operationalize their right to health
national strategy. The framework law should establish national mechanisms for monitoring the
implementation of national health strategies and plans of action. It should include provisions on
the targets to be achieved and the time-frame for their achievement; the means by which right to
health benchmarks could be achieved; the intended collaboration with civil society, including
health experts, the private sector and international organizations; institutional responsibility for
the implementation of the right to health national strategy and plan of action; and possible
recourse procedures. In monitoring progress towards the realization of the right to health, States
parties should identify the factors and difficulties affecting implementation of their obligations.
Right to health indicators and benchmarks
57.
National health strategies should identify appropriate right to health indicators and
benchmarks. The indicators should be designed to monitor, at the national and international
levels, the State party’s obligations under article 12. States may obtain guidance on appropriate
right to health indicators, which should address different aspects of the right to health, from the
ongoing work of WHO and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in this field. Right to
health indicators require disaggregation on the prohibited grounds of discrimination.
58.
Having identified appropriate right to health indicators, States parties are invited to set
appropriate national benchmarks in relation to each indicator. During the periodic reporting
procedure the Committee will engage in a process of scoping with the State party. Scoping
involves the joint consideration by the State party and the Committee of the indicators and
national benchmarks which will then provide the targets to be achieved during the next reporting
period. In the following five years, the State party will use these national benchmarks to help
monitor its implementation of article 12. Thereafter, in the subsequent reporting process, the
State party and the Committee will consider whether or not the benchmarks have been achieved,
and the reasons for any difficulties that may have been encountered.
Remedies and accountability
59.
Any person or group victim of a violation of the right to health should have access to
effective judicial or other appropriate remedies at both national and international levels.30 All
victims of such violations should be entitled to adequate reparation, which may take the form of