[afro-nets] Food for a morally imperative thought

[Claudio Schuftan <claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn>]

Food for a morally imperative thought
-------------------------------------

Human Rights Reader 106

Feeling helpless or lost (or being used) in your work?: Adopt
the Human Rights-based Approach to development!

In development policy, human rights are frequently understood
above all as values; their legal nature is often neglected. Hu-
man rights contain both: values, but also binding obligations.

1. Introducing the rights-based-approach-to-development (RBA)
represents a totally different way to marshal, organize and de-
ploy resources. The RBA aims at changing the historically de-
pendent nature of most claim-holders/duty-bearers relationships,
at the same time that it attempts to reduce claim-holders' vul-
nerability as they are socially and politically empowered. A ca-
veat is due here though: The struggle for the realization of hu-
man (people's) rights does not have to end-up in conflict --
although it often does; so, we should not instinctively shy away
from a justified confrontation. In other words, human rights
work has to be both promotional and proactive in vigorously
tackling human rights (HR) violations --particularly when the
state is unwilling to protect public welfare.

2. On top of promoting a national consensus around HR, main-
streaming the RBA also means improving the legislative basis of
HR. Striving for a strong, independent judiciary is also, there-
fore, a working front for HR activists; the judiciary needs
strong, independent lawyers and judges, well versed in HR is-
sues. Consequently, the RBA aims at influencing national legis-
lation, legal practice, distribution of budgetary resources and
national policies in critical rights-related areas. 'Social ob-
servatories' can and should be set-up to monitor the allocations
in the national budget every year. [The participative, popular
budget preparation process in Brasil's Porto Alegre Municipality
is a fitting example].

3. The RBA is meant to produce verifiable results in terms of
changes in processes and changes in the capacities of claim-
holders and of duty-bearers. It ultimately tests our ability to
make a country's authorities abide by the HR covenants they have
signed. Therefore, monitoring the achievements of the RBA puts
emphasis on capacities developed by duty-bearers and claim-
holders, checking that they have resulted in verifiable improve-
ments (more so as regards intentional than incidental impacts).
Capacity development is crucial to link HR standards and the
specific development processes set in motion.

4. Applying 'good programming' does not in itself constitute a
RBA; a RBA requires unique additional elements like the follow-
ing:
- Identifying the unfulfilled rights of claim-holders and the
correlative obligations of duty-bearers, as well as the underly-
ing and basic causes of the non-realization of those rights;
- assessing the capacity of claim-holders to claim their rights
and of duty-bearers to fulfill their obligations;
- monitoring both outcomes and HR-directed processes set in mo-
tion; and
- doing all programming based on recommendations emanating from
existing HR bodies and covenants.

5. It is, therefore, for example, not enough to build a school
and to say that we are with it fulfilling the HR to education;
rather, HR themselves have to be promoted throughout the educa-
tion system, perhaps incorporating the topic in all major cur-
ricula.

6. Ergo, as HR activists, when using the RBA we are not trying
to achieve the biggest-difference, but the most-qualitatively-
correct-and morally-called-for-difference.

7. To achieve the above, the media should also be lobbied so
they contribute their share to spreading constitutional, democ-
ratic and HR ideals. But, as the HR Readers have contended pre-
viously, this is often not the case: abuses of power and fla-
grant violations of HR are covered only occasionally. There is a
'potential for democratization' there, but national press cover-
age has yet to become democratic; so far, there is no sign of
this happening (enough).

Transparency rules are of little use unless active media and
civil society organizations involved in HR serve as watchdogs to
alert the wider public about ongoing abuses (the latter either
through or not through the media). This, also because --unless
they are reported-- distortions, violations and abuses continue
to occur even under conditions of improved transparency.

What this means is that anyone who is not party to knowledge
about ongoing violations, is excluded from exerting the power to
revert the same violations by holding the corresponding duty-
bearers accountable. This explains why this Reader has always
been of the opinion that political and historical development
perspectives should be analyzed in the light of class interests.
[Beware, knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and people who
mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the
power knowledge gives. Knowledge is power, but sharing informa-
tion also is progress. Without knowledge, an effective demand
cannot be achieved to have a chance to influence public HR pol-
icy]. (D+C) ( IDS)

8. Granted, many practices in the RBA may infringe social cus-
toms which people do not (yet) regard as wrong (e.g., female
genital mutilation). But the fact that HR principles were first
postulated in Europe and North America is merely a historical,
but not an ethnocentric fact. As early as 1990, the South Com-
mission, under former Tanzanian president Mwalimu Julius Nyer-
ere, already described democracy and HR as key foundations of
development. Social peace, it was said, only prevails where all
citizens are able to pursue their interests and rights through
legitimate means and with realistic chances of success.

9. Moreover, in HR work, institutions are also key actors.
Therefore, policy measures in the HR domain will have no long-
term impact without institutional reform. Rights-based solutions
need to be customized --with proposed reforms firmly anchored in
the local political realities. In an effort to make the perti-
nent institutions truly accountable to the people they are sup-
posed to serve, we have to make sure they 'own' these reforms
before they are adopted. A lot of advocacy needed here.

10. But in 2005, this is not an easy road to follow. As long as
the G8 countries continue to define development policy along the
lines of security policy, and as long as fragile states are my-
opically seen as breeding grounds of terrorism, HR will continue
to be violated with impunity mostly by using sheer might. The
military will simply never become a true partner in development
work. In such a world, we need to forcefully counter the renewed
tide of hawkish authoritarian influences.

11. Development and security policy need to be kept strictly
separate; they pursue different goals and use different tools.
At the very minimum, these opposing policies bring about con-
flicts in the distribution of resources, i.e., how much money is
allocated for development and how much for security work. If we
do not start our struggle at this level, much of what we do af-
terwards will be simply reactive and not proactive.

12. The RBA contends that inequitable public policies --even if
beefed-up with more resources to tackle social problems targeted
at specific vulnerable groups --will not succeed. In the RBA, a
deeper level of political and economic action is called-for. The
RBA assigns social value to what is considered to be unfair,
avoidable and unnecessary within the spectrum of inequities
found; and what is unfair is a social and political decision.
Inequities arise from patterns of ownership, of wealth, of em-
ployment, of trade, and of political influence; these are all
more consistently addressed in the RBA than in the current de-
velopment paradigm.

13. Greater equity is achieved by sharing empowering-knowledge-
to-be-used-as-evidence and by building-the-political-momentum-
for-that-knowledge-to-be-used-for-sustainable-equitable-and-HR-
friendly-changes.

14.Confronting inequity cannot, therefore, be separated from the
political struggle for better policies and more resources for
the poor and rightless.

In sum, organization and social mobilization are fundamental to
equity and HR. An early success will depend on the extent to
which the RBA tackles inequity by giving priority to the organ-
izational aspects to combat it.

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

___________________________________
Mostly adapted from Ted Freeman and Urban Jonsson, D+C Vol. 31,
June, July, Aug/Sept and Oct 2004, Perspectives in Global Devel-
opment and Technology, Vol 3, No. 1-2, 2004, and Insights 51,
Dec 04 (id21-IDS).