The others “R” us.
Never forget we “R” them.
Human Rights “R” ours.(JeromeKoenig)
Actually, there is still much to do about nailing certain old and already stale myths in the human rights domain. Among them:
1. Not even waiting for the expected post-2015-push, our challenge is to concentrate our efforts on actively tackling disparity reduction rather thanconcentrate our efforts on poverty alleviation alone. (The cake is only so big; we have to slice it more fairly…).
2. Targeting interventions to ‘the poor’ is nothing but depersonalizing them and throwing at them a crumb of bread to feed them today. Targeting does nothing to address the structural determinants that perpetuate poverty, generation after generation, i.e., in thirty years we may still find ourselves ‘targeting the poor’…. (Please, also mind that it is not about ‘the poor’…it is about ‘those-being-rendered-poor’ by an unfair and unjust economic system with its clearly differential enjoyment of human rights (HR) and ultimately differential exposure to premature and preventable ill-health and deaths).*
*: Furthermore, the populations we purport to be ultimately serving are not really ‘vulnerable’; they are also rendered vulnerable by the same unfair and unjust economic system. The same is true for inequality; inequality is not our problem: it is the individuals/structures and forces that perpetuate inequality that are our problem. (Vicente Navarro). In other words, looking at vulnerability this way points us towards identifying and addressing/opposing those forces, individuals and institutions responsible for it.
3. In our work in HR, our challenge thus really goes beyond tackling the social determinants of, for instance, preventable ill-health and malnutrition; the challenge rather is about tackling the social determination of the grossly unfair differential enjoyment of HR. (The latter concept points us much more directly towards the structural social, economic and political determinants really at the base of HR violations as seen worldwide).
4. A lot is being said about HR-sensitive interventions. For us HR activists, this is a deliberate way to water-down the more precise language of the HR-based framework. I ask: Do we need the (softened) new term ‘HR-sensitive’?
5. Also, much is said about safety nets and targeting, i.e., zeroing-in on the most affected (at great cost) and, as said, ‘throwing them a crumb of bread’ (or ‘giving them a fish to feed themselves for a day’**) without changing the structures of the system that perpetuates their condition of ‘most affected’. Targeting is only ethically tenable if, concomitantly, we put in place drastic measures to address the structural causes of the unfair economic system.
**: Teaching them to fish to feed themselves, as is so often repeated, is not a solution either …as long as those who control the lake where to go fishing are those vested with economic interests they resist to relinquish…
6. Given the magnitude of the problems at hand, shouldn’t we then be making a difference in our daily work between what is only interesting and what is really important?That is, aren’t the trees not letting many of us see the forest? Is it enough for us to contribute to solving the myriad problems of, again in my example, ill-health and/or malnutrition by just doing what we do everyday? Or isn’t it? New commitments are needed (beyond the so often pushed multidisciplinary/multisectoral approach) to resolve said problems; we cannot disregard the political implications of what really needs to be done: political we must become if we are to avoid the doom scenario that lies before us and threatens our common future.
7. How much does each one of us have to realign her/his priorities? We always need to keep in mind that much of what we each do, day-in-day-out, may be necessary, but is it really sufficient? For instance, to solve the global problem of malnutrition, shouldn’t we be playing a more proactive vocal role in opposing commodities-futures-markets that set prices of commodities to the whims of speculators? Or, to more forcefully oppose agricultural subsidies in the rich world? Additionally, are we forceful enough to demand a switch in our emphasis from food security to food sovereignty as an emerging competing and more correct concept? Or, will we pay more attention and act on the important issue of land grabbing? We cannot fail to address these issues. Everything technical we get involved-in fades in the light of these macro constraints.
8. Be mindful that the delaying tactic that undecided or opposed decision-makers (or many of us as well) more often than not use is to call for yet another task force or committee to ‘further study’ the issue(s) at hand.
9. The era of recommendations that start with “The government should…” is finished. The pertinent questions are: What will I do? What will you do? What will we do? What will the government actually do? The era of nice documents and nice declarations without ‘teeth’ is also finished.
10. With the UN having already accepted HR as the kingpin of the post-2015 agenda, it baffles me how little we –in the development community– are collectively acting on this needed change-of-paradigm so far. I here make an impassionate call for colleagues to become more HR literate. HR learning is an imperative!…at a massive scale.
11. Furthermore, we must face it: the era of addressing Basic Human Needs has also come to an end; we live in the era of development as a human right and that forces us to focus our attention on the violation of HR the world over and on the role of empowering claim holders and duty bearers to get rid of these violations. Will the post-215 debate finally center around this accordingly? If this is to happen, we all have to play an active role in it. Period.
Some important calls
12. Because of the above, the challenge for the post-2015 agenda is not really to set yet new outcome indicators or goals to track either progress or regression. In the era of development-as-a-human-right, the much more important focus is to be on process indicators being achieved progressively and ultimately leading towards the desired HR outcomes. (This was a big shortcoming of the MDGs).
13. The implication of this is that, post-2015, all countries should be called to prepare long-term progressive realization of HR plans in all areas; plans that specify annual benchmarks that need to be achieved to be ‘on course’. The latter can/should be monitored by watchdog civil society organizations so as to keep governments on track and accountable. This is the core of the change of paradigm we need.
14. Already these days, we hear and read too much from prophets of the post-2015 development agenda that I feel are preaching nothing but a ‘politics of the extreme center’….and this is not what we need given the cumulative evidence we are exposed-to about the multiple threats to our common future.
15. Again and again we are reminded that the problems we face are complex and multidimensional; so, calls are made for what?: for further research. This is not helpful at this point as so much of the evidence is already in. These are times of action. Details can be solved on-the-go.
16. Complex or not complex, we-have-what-we-have and we are all expected to come up with solutions. I am afraid the solutions needed will have to go quite a bit beyond the politics of the extreme center. What this implies, I will leave to you to figure out. But for us, HR activists, the challenges and needed lines of action are clear. Let the time not escape, for yesterday was the time to act! (Don’t our deliberations these days give you a slight sense of deja-vu?).
17. Calls are being made to feed our planned actions into the governmental process. Fair enough. But what about making concrete suggestions on how to feed into the myriad grassroots processes the world over? It is this that will bring us back to the centrality of adopting the HR framework and will bring us back to what metrics to select –a metrics more skewed towards process and participation indicators showing us the way to the progressive realization of HR. Therein lies the needed change of paradigm.
18. Reaching a ‘common vision’, as so often is called for, is in last instance an ideological problem. We are not primarily dealing with an inter-sectoral or multidisciplinary problem; sectors called-on to collaborate that have individuals with a conservative ideology will come up with conservative technocratic solutions. Am I very wrong?
19. Therefore, in the next 12 months, we must hold honest discussions and negotiations not only on the substantial technical issues, but also on the substantial political issues of our future development agenda. Anything short of this will …I leave it up to you to complete the sentence.
20. Last but not least, we do not really need the myriad justifications given of why health, nutrition, education, water… are important, because they improve productivity or educational performance. They are all important, because they are undeniable human rights. Period. They are all more an ethical and a political imperative, not a foremost economic imperative. We need not search for more justifications and fall prey to the game of the politics of the extreme center. That is the change of paradigm we need.
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
cschuftan@phmovement.org