AFRO-NETS> Food for an active engagement beyond thoughts (2)

[Claudio Schuftan <aviva@netnam.vn>]

Food for an active engagement beyond thoughts (2)
-------------------------------------------------

Human Rights Reader 41

BEYOND CAPACITY ANALYSIS: ADDITIONAL ELEMENTS OF A HUMAN RIGHTS-BASED 
DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
(Part 2 of 2)

13. A new human rights-based strategy will thus:
- be rights-based (emphasis here on purpose),
- be process and outcome oriented,
- be beneficiary centered/driven,
- be participatory in a de-facto empowering way [see note 4],
- be problem identifying/problem solving (using participatory posi-
  tive processes as an operational framework),
- be guided by a scientific causal analysis (using an explicit con-
  ceptual framework),
- be implemented progressively and in a targeted way, and
- be advocacy/activism-focused (using ethical, scientific, technical
  and political arguments and avenues to achieve the goals set; the
  "global embarrassment" trump card is also to be used widely). [5]

14. The human rights-based strategy will combine top-down and bottom-
up actions (making it bottom-centered) and will explore and take ad-
vantage of all potential synergisms and convergences when applying 
different cross-sectoral interventions. [Traditional sectoral bounda-
ries should become virtual in a true human rights-based strategy].

15. Decentralization-cum-democratization (and not only deconcentra-
tion) with devolution of decision-making power to the periphery 
through community-driven actions backed by funds being truly made 
available locally are all crucial to the human rights-based approach.

16. The mobilization of financial resources is to cover both (the 
higher) initial costs of interventions and their (lower) recurrent 
maintenance costs --the latter being progressively borne by local 
communities for a) sustainability purposes, and b) to assure the 
process is actually more and more controlled by the beneficiaries 
themselves.

17. In the existing ocean of confusion about the term, 'community 
participation' will be more clearly defined as a truly empowering 
tool in the context of the human rights-based strategy. (4) Guide-
lines will need to be written on how to apply its principles.

18. The long-term vision and aims of the human rights-based strategy 
will have to be defined as well, especially on how priorities will 
respond to the most pressing felt needs of the people as set locally 
(and not set in general by the strategy proponents at central level).

19. Additionally, beyond completing a participatory capacity analy-
sis, the human rights based strategy will focus: 
* on empowering people (this is crucial), 
* on reducing poverty and inequities (especially around gender is-
  sues), 
* on mobilizing all necessary local and external resources for rele-
  vant actions (with the community progressively gaining control over 
  them),
* on using the pressure of facts -- acquired through the use of local 
  information systems -- to trigger action by fueling relevant positive 
  processes and genuine micro-regional planning. (This encompasses the 
  participatory assessment and measurement of actionable indicators so 
  as to create awareness and a true dialogue among the people),
* on using this community surveillance data to prompt and keep up
  local mobilization efforts,
* on demanding accountability and transparency, as well as on expos-
  ing corruption at all levels,
* on delivering basic services, and on expanding access to and cover-
  age and utilization of them, as well as improving their quality,
* on assuring an adequately functioning peripheral health care system 
  with both viable and fitting curative and preventive, as well as re-
  habilitative care strategies (arrived at in true partnership between 
  providers and users),
* on making services more responsive to the needs of the population,
* on building capacity and raising people's political consciousness,
* on developing human resources that are conversant with the princi-
  ples of the human rights-based approach,
* on strengthening existing institutions to do the above, as well as 
  on organizing meaningful exchange visits,
* on achieving sustainability and assuring replicability, as well as 
  on geographically converging different actions to maximize outcomes,
* on communicating and sharing successes,
* on networking, on building coalitions and on doing active national 
  and international solidarity work,
* on identifying and working with strategic allies/helping forces and
* on neutralizing strategic opponents/hindering forces,
* on applying operations research techniques to decide on the best 
  long-term course of action to follow,
* on setting up ongoing on-the-job cum support supervision activities 
  that will replace workshop-based, mostly theoretical, training,
* on building, equipping and staffing minimum needed PHC infrastruc-
  tures and, from there, providing ongoing outreach services,
* on working with 'deserving' NGOs that have revisioned their future 
  and have taken up a new mission around the human rights-based ap-
  proach,
* on giving environmental protection a higher profile, and
* on setting up more equitable cost-sharing approaches.

20. Moreover, the human rights-based strategy will not neglect improv-
ing management practices at local level allowing communities to de-
facto share the responsibility of co-managing resources and services.

21. The strategy will need one or two explicit, quantified and timed 
'poverty redressal objectives' monitored at least yearly. (6) Social 
and political mapping of resources and their control will thus have 
to be carried out yearly as well. (7)

22. Finally, the human rights-based strategy will have to take an un-
equivocal proactive stand towards reversing the negative effects:
* of structural adjustment programs,
* of the processes of globalization and privatization being pushed by 
  the WB, the IMF and other agencies,
* of the diverse multilateral and bilateral donor, as well as NGO de-
  velopment projects not in line with the human rights-based approach,
* of social marketing unidirectionally applied to change people's be-
  havior without letting them decide why such change is needed,
* of existing national development policies that have become obso-
  lete, and
* of existing current government development resources allocation 
  formulae not in line with human rights priorities.

In closing:
23. The additional elements here presented emphasize the sizeable 
dissemination and lobbying challenge ahead of us in the next decade 
in our efforts to have governments, development agencies and NGOs --
as well as beneficiaries-- adopt the new human rights-based strategy.

24. We are talking about creating a movement; not only using the human 
rights-based approach as a methodology (as a tool box); if we do the 
latter, we will fail, as many packaged tool boxes have failed before 
-- even if those tools evolved some as they were used.

Claudio Schuftan
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
mailto:aviva@netnam.vn

----
[4]: Any attempted operational definition of empowerment will carry a 
certain bias depending on the conceptual glasses one is wearing. What 
is clear is that, in a mostly zero-sum game, the empowerment of some, 
most of the time, entails the disempowerment of others --usually the 
current holders of power. Different local contexts may make the same 
action(s) sometimes empowering, other times not. (Also, empowering 
people in community development work may sometimes be dangerous; it 
can well trigger repressive actions by the authorities). Empowerment 
is not an outcome of a single event. It is a continuous process that 
enables people to understand, upgrade and use their capacity to bet-
ter control and gain power over their own lives. It provides people 
with choices and the ability to choose, as well as to gain more con-
trol over resources they need to improve their condition. It expands 
the 'political space' within which Assessment-Analysis-Action proc-
esses operate in any community.

[5]: Global embarrassment is a term coined a few years ago in the 
context of lobbying. It refers to publicly blaming national and 
global leaders about the unacceptable levels of poverty, ill-health 
and malnutrition found, as well as about the host of human rights be-
ing violated in almost every country in the world; the idea is that 
by publicly blaming them for such an embarrassment one can trigger 
their response and generate greater political pressure to get the 
problems resolved.

[6]: Poverty redressal objectives are objectives explicitly worded to 
reflect the specific, quantified reductions in parameters/indicators 
of poverty sought.

[7]: Social and political mapping exercises refer to deliberate peri-
odic assessments carried out to determine who controls the different 
resources the communities need to foster development actions, i.e., 
which social groups control them and what are their ultimate politi-
cal motivations and leanings.

--
To send a message to AFRO-NETS, write to: afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe, write to: majordomo@usa.healthnet.org
in the body of the message type: subscribe afro-nets OR unsubscribe afro-nets
To contact a person, send a message to: afro-nets-help@usa.healthnet.org
Information and archives: http://www.afronets.org