Human rights: Food for faulty dominant thought ‘HR and the prevailing development paradigm’
Human Rights Reader 489
-When we talk about a development paradigm shift, we are talking about applying the human rights (HR) framework to the current development approaches and this requires nothing short of a paradigm break. (I hate that Roman called Status-Quo…!)
Does foreign aid really help developing countries?
1. To the contrary of what foreign aid promises, such aid contributes, not to the development of those countries, but rather to keep them underdeveloped and dependent of the rich countries. (Boaventura de Sousa Santos) Aid for development still represents a relationship of dependency; it attributes the imbalances of power to knowledge and capacities’ deficits. It is very much a one-way street. But the alternative HR-based approach is far from having gained consensus –and has moved little beyond discourse. (Viva Salud)
2. Development agencies forever keep their long established frameworks just enhancing them with ‘some add-ons’ like ‘streamlining’ (a favorite piece of jargon) HR and gender issues, adding (non-emergency) food aid* and supporting ‘some kind’ of participation, empowerment and environmental sustainability. The dominant approach remains prescriptive though, targeting individuals rather than addressing the structural determinants of maldevelopment (not underdevelopment!). Furthermore, the much pushed evidence-based approach championed by these agencies may (just may) be a good input, but is definitely not what leads to the needed changes.**
*: While the rich get richer, the poor get …food aid (or more children…). But food aid applies a first aid measure to a chronic condition of deprivation and exploitation.
**: Another dead-end approach promoted by them is their calls for ‘inter-culturality’ that are nothing but a trap. First, the local culture needs to be empowered to stand up to the invading culture so as to have the final say and have a chance to prevail.
3. Yes, the top-down approaches of foreign aid operate within the dominant paradigm. Bottom-up (or bottom-centered) approaches are the HR way to go, but raise various challenges for HR advocates. They require great commitments of their time and scrambling for very few resources. Furthermore, these advocates run up against entrenched roles, outdated training and, last but not least, egos. They often devolve into a level of micro-advocacy that loses sight of the forest for the trees (i.e., the larger institutional power dynamics). (Chris Jochnick)
Development occurs where challenge is followed by homegrown response
4. Although Gramsci did not talk about HR, he was of the opinion that: “Struggle is indeed a principle of development:To be is to do.” This is why development is more than the translation of all our scientific, ethical and historical knowledge into society’s management. (D. Najman) The political and HR angles are thus indispensable. We cannot de-couple development from ‘the economic and the political’ and from HR and pretend we are ‘automatically’ coupling it with ‘the social’.
5. Only now are we starting to wake up-to and face the challenges of HR –and to actively work towards applying the HR framework as a key tool and response. For a while, this may have to require external inputs/inroads to stimulate dormant internal potentials. (Reinhard Thiele) A tree cannot grow through the action of external forces; it needs the activation of internal forces.
A plan is like the high beams of a car; it allows us to see ahead
-Modern societies are interventionist (no laissez-faire) so people are pushed around not only by existing policies, but also when policies are inexistent.
6. Development planning is a means to make sure needs are transformed into effective demands.*** But top-down planning has been used to maintain the existing power structure!
***: We define Need as a sense of want; Demand as the willingness to give up resources (human, financial physical facilities) for getting access to services. An Effective Demand we define as spending (or investing) the above resources as decided by claim holders.
7. The World Bank’s World Development Reports cannot thus possibly, by themselves, empower people. They can actually disempower them if they follow the traditional pattern of coming up with authoritative findings and recommendations that justify certain conservative government policies (the paradigm again…). (Mike Waghorne). The technically motivated process pushed by the Bank**** is not associated with the true and realistic engineer-versus-activist (conciliatory-versus-confrontational) narrative so that it dodges what is essential for comprehensive development to happen.
****: Beware: Technical issues are not a-political. They do influence political processes towards particular ends; they blunt genuine participative popular processes. (Rene Loewenson)
Will decisions taken by the-whole-of-society always benefit the whole-of-society?
8. The response to this question depends on what meaning you want to give it; and the meaning is purposely fuzzy. In development work, the world loves to blindly cling to either obsolete or creatively introduced new ideas and slogans (as a delaying tactic). Other ‘fuzzies’ that I love are ‘health-in-all-policies’, ‘evidence-based’ ‘stakeholders’, ‘green development’ …all used in a vacuum of their political, structural connotations for change –and none addressing the key role of claim holders and duty bearers. When new evidence matures, instead of rectifying the mistakes, the haves punish those who spread the new evidence –yes, to defend the paradigm! (adapted from Marcos Aguinis)
9. So, to answer the question above it will depend on who the whole-of-society will be. This Reader has told you perhaps ad-nauseam who the whos ought to be so I will just leave it here.
It is not about improving the existing society as establishing a new one. (Marx)
10. Establishing a new society (via replacing the obsolete paradigm) is where the key is. It is not about reforming, hiding or cosmetically making-up something old giving the illusion that real change is being made.***** From the HR perspective, we are talking about profound changes. Of course, this is monumentally difficult; it is about reinventing humanity guided by an avant garde attempting to dynamize and push the process of change. (Marcelo Colusi)
****: To continue the Marxist thread of thought, most often, those who pay the social costs of production are not the people who also gain from the benefits of production. Governments and businesses invest only in what is directly productive (or, these days, speculative…) and shift the greatest percentage of the social costs to the poorest quintiles in the population.
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com
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