Food for a principled thought expressed with conviction
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Human Rights Reader 102
More on Poverty and Human Rights
Many have the misfortune of being born in a poor country, but
not a poor world!
1. Traditional development cooperation has failed to curb pov-
erty and human rights (HR) abuses despite the fact that almost
all measures in it are now being given 'the-poverty-alleviation-
label'; for instance, development through privatization has
proven a recipe for further impoverishment, and PRSPs are also
failing: they do not consider the budgetary implications of the
measures that are being proposed, so paradise is promised. [In-
cidentally, the label 'Human-Rights' is also now timidly appear-
ing in traditional development cooperation projects; the ques-
tion is if it is so for the right reason].
2. Not only have we witnessed that 'clever solutions' have not
solved the resilient poverty and HR problems the world over, but
they may have further had the unintended (?) consequence of de-
tracting from the less attractive, painful structural reforms
that were ultimately needed to solve the same problems.
3. Focusing public resources on the poor (as in traditional de-
velopment) to 'lift' them out of poverty is not the way to go:
sustained society-wide-targeted-income-transfers/redistribution
measures are needed for poverty reduction.
4. To achieve this, poor people must gain voice and influence to
claim their rights in front of the relevant social sector insti-
tutions and in the national political discourse overall ( thus
reversing decades of exclusion).
5. To have a higher probability for solutions to the poverty and
HR problems to work, these have to be structurally sound, i.e.,
be designed to tackle the basic socioeconomic and political
causes of the problem.
6. These days, the HR-based approach to development cooperation
has to be oriented to developing the capacities and the resolve
of duty-bearers-to-meet-their-obligations and the capacities and
the resolve of claim-holders-to-claim-their-rights.
7. This calls for a big shift, one that places individuals and
communities and their rights and responsibilities at the center
of the development process. The shift also has to result in for-
going the myopic focus on higher per-capita income as a goal, to
be replaced by key social and HR goals --this, a matter of so-
cial choice.
8. Are these old recipes for a different new world? Not in my
view! Quite on the contrary, they represent a principled posi-
tion maintained with conviction in the face of new challenges.in
the same old world.
Claudio Schuftan
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
mailto:claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn
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Mostly taken from Ted Freeman and Urban Jonsson, F&D, 41:1,
March 2004 (IMF), F+D Vol 41: 2, June 2004, IFPRI Forum, March
2004, and D+C Vol. 31, Aug/Sept 2004.