[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are you care about HR. This Reader is about what is not discussed about foreign ‘aid’ and how human rights get the ‘short stick of the deal’. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Note: You can easily translate the Readers to many languages, Use the app deepl.com and it is done instantaneously. It takes seconds to download the app into your computer or phone and translations are of high quality.
–Why did inequality arise? Perhaps, as activists, we should ask: Why are we stuck in it?
-There has been not much improvement in the effort to effectively address inequality, except for aspirational quotes (‘lip service’) on equality-as-a-principle and the need to fulfil human-rights-as-an-outcome. On the operational front, selective silence is the norm. What must be discussed is how to translate the need for equity and equality into concrete legally binding commitments –no less so by external funders.
1. Countries rendered poor are highly dependent on external funding (wrongly called ‘aid’ or overseas development ‘assistance’ -ODA). They receive considerable sums from external funders through grants and loans. As initially conceived-of, their ‘aid’ is intended to reduce poverty and to support socio-economic development. Although initially conceived to be a form of temporary assistance, many countries have chronically continued to face financing gaps for their development aspirations. ‘Short-term’ foreign funding has become ‘long-term’ and these countries have become increasingly dependent on this funding to meet key health and other public services obligations –wither a human rights-based approach.
The COVID pandemic has further threatened to turn dependency into debt
2. In most of the recipient countries, bilateral grants are the largest source of funding. The United States is one of the largest external funders followed by the European Commission. However, since COVID, the profile of official development assistance(?) has switched from grants to increased proportions of concessional loans from international financial institutions. This, at a time when countries face significant liabilities from the pandemic and a rise in the debt to GDP ratio. The shift from grants to loans simply adds further pressures to the public purse (ending up spending high percentages of total domestic revenue on debt servicing that has become many times higher than, for instance, their total health sector budget). Efforts to re-negotiate or restructure loans have not yet yielded meaningful progress. This often means that these countries have to borrow yet more to pay –wither the rights of claim holders.
3. All this at a time when the level of global inequality between countries and between elites and the many in society clearly calls for redistributive financing within and between countries. Concerns have been raised over the way ODA from high to low- and middle-income countries so often encourages corruption, distorts priorities, masks inefficiencies and shifts attention away from domestic budget commitments (and from worrisome international economic, trade and investment issues). Despite long-standing and significant levels of external funding, the health and other sectors still suffer from inadequate funding and infrastructure and from flagrant top-down (non-participative) governance –wither human rights (HR).
The provision of foreign funding has generated a culture of dependence from recipients and paternalism from funders
4. The ‘donor’-‘recipient’ relationship hampers local expertise since local knowledge and capacities are ignored (‘consultant knows best’). This attitude and practice is embedded in a neo-colonial and racist assumption. The often for-profit Northern ‘aid’ industry often places itself in the position of external managers, intermediaries, implementers, and monitors of ODA. On the other side, it leads to an unhealthy reliance on foreign funding to meet what are state obligations, for instance in health (such as immunizing children that should be fully funded by the government).
5. Whatever the well-meaning intentions, a mix of dependency and paternalism carries the risk of infantilizing local (underpaid) experts and of absolving states of their responsibilities to their populations through the allocation of domestic resources. It would be naïf to ignore the fact that ODA carries with it ‘interests’ of both funder and recipient. This calls for transparency in the negotiation of these ‘interests’. Commitments (mostly oral) have been made to increase transparency in this relationship, but these commitments are not always delivered-on, and still far too little information is shared with local actors –much less with HR activist organizations. ODA financing of a large share of development expenditure comes with conditions for close monitoring and reporting by states to external funders –sometimes with stronger accountability to high income country funders and tax payers than to the citizens and parliaments of recipient countries; this, in fact, marginalizes and hampers mechanisms for domestic accountability. Absolutely, accountability needs to be demanded in recipient countries(!) especially since what is written on paper is often different from what is practiced, and since hoped-for HR achievements are nowhere to be seen.
6. Off-budget external funding having parallel reporting mechanisms means that evidence is not shared with domestic actors. It is not easy to access information on external funding when off-budget, such as in various forms of public-private partnerships or multistakeholder platforms. Demands for domestic accountability also face power imbalances between funders and communities, and between high- and low-income countries.
Bottom line
7. All these shortfalls and concerns are being voiced in many recipient countries, but also in some high-income countries, including those seeking to ‘decolonize’ ODA while still meeting obligations to global public goods, solidarity and HR. This raises questions about how external funding is directed, given and used now and in the longer term, especially if the ‘giving’ creates repayment liabilities that the public will be paying for well into the future.
8. These issues need to be debated. Transparency and access to information must be at the heart of the negotiation of ODA relationships, not only between states, but also with the public on both sides. The lack of transparency and blockages in information flow noted here, including between states and citizens need to be addressed. This includes bringing ODA ‘on-budget’ to capture and align the resources towards national priorities and systems, and to enable and improve the mechanisms-for and practice-of public domain reporting and oversight.
9. External funders simply need to understand, engage and align with the contexts, priorities and cultures of countries they engage with, and to invest time and resources upfront to engage to a greater degree in designing their investments and projects, not only including local actors, but also bringing the HR perspective center stage. This is important to avoid overlooking and under-investing in local development problems and priorities (HR included!), as well as under-investing in the institutional and systems needs to implement them. It can be argued that the shift noted earlier from grant to loan funding, for example, reflects more the interests of high-income country funders than the post-pandemic realities faced by the countries and their affected communities. This places a demand on states to build strategic capacities and alliances to negotiate domestic interests, to look beyond immediate sums to be received, and to negotiate their implications and future burdens (HR included!).
10. Moreover, there is also an obligation of external funders not to exploit or exacerbate weaknesses in recipients’ capacities and accountability mechanisms, but instead reinforce or support their strengths. For both sides this is a business of ‘level-field partnerships’, relationships and diplomacy, as well as one in which power inequalities and the institutional barriers on both sides of the relationship need to be more explicitly addressed, to achieve HR outcomes that matter for sustained population wellbeing and progress. (all taken and adapted from D. Gotto, EQUINET)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com
All Readers are available at www.claudioschuftan.com