[A compilation of bare-bones Human Rights truisms]
Human Rights Planning and Programming
- Although HR are equal and cannot be prioritized based on intrinsic merit, actions to realize the rights can be.
- It is not enough that planning, implementation and monitoring of a program are ‘guided’ by HR principles; these principles must be built-in in every step of the process.
- The HR-based approach to planning and programming (HRBAP) is both about claiming and claiming-against. It can be used to challenge power structures. [It is thus no longer about ‘a-world-where-leaders-commit’; it is about those ‘leaders’-obligation-to-act’; it is about building-in HR in everything we do].
- The identification and bridging of capacity gaps of claim holders and duty bearers at all levels becomes the focus of development programming.
- In the HRBAP, ‘causality analyses’ result in the identification of a set of rights that are being violated; ‘pattern analyses’ identify key claim holder/duty bearer relationships for each specific right; it is fundamentally the additional ‘capacity analyses’ that define the capacity gaps of claim-holders-to-claim-their-rights and of duty-bearers-to-meet-their-duties. A programmatic response aimed at the realization of rights must contribute to narrowing or closing these capacity gaps. Therefore, HRBAP programming will mean making distinct strategic choices.
- In HR work, interventions must often be deliberately unequal in order to address imbalances in HR-based relationships.
- Health policies and programs can promote or violate HR depending on how they are designed and implemented.
Communications in the Human Right-based Approach
- Channels of communication in a community are a reflection of its power structure.
- From a HR perspective, communication interventions should give a voice to claim-holders-who-cannot-speak-equally-and-effectively, especially those who are currently voiceless. For example, women and children, cannot express their aspirations to duty bearers. HR aim at interactive communications useful to all claim holders to negotiate with duty bearers.
- Communications from a HR perspective thus establish a process in which claim holders have an increased say in setting the development agenda.
Miscellaneous truisms
- In the HR discourse, we use the concepts of ‘obligations-of-result’ and ‘obligations-of-conduct’. Both require equal attention.
- 33. Lack of training and capacity building in HR is one of the most important constraints to the adoption of the HRBAP.
- We now need to move people from a deeply rooted conviction about the-need-of-a-development-ethics to a-full-HR-based-approach . We have to start from where most staff of development and HR organizations are today and show them the benefits of using the HRBA.
- Marginalized persons can only make claims if they have the ability to alter the social context within their communities. They must be able to negotiate or impose change on those who hold power –altering existing patterns of power and rights in their favor.
- Achieving the MDGs cannot be construed as indicators of progress on economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR).
- The HRBA is no longer about preparing children for a harsh world –it is really about creating A-World-Fit-For-Children.
- A gender focus in our work calls for changes in many prevailing social rules, i.e., it calls for socially reconstructing social relationships along HR principles.
- In Short, HR provide a compelling normative framework for the formulation of national and international policies very much including poverty reduction strategies.
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City