Why it is so important for development
Friday, 31 August 2007
Shazzad Khan
FOR long in the development discourse, it was the economic growth that was of central concern, with human rights remaining largely marginal. While the development discourse evolved through various phases, focusing on Gross National Product (GNP), basic needs, structural adjustment, and so forth, a special focus on "rights" was missing. The definition of development had a primary focus on economic growth and material prosperity alone, but any inclusion of freedom, dignity and overall "well-being" of the people was totally ignored, and the development was merely linked to human rights standards.
Development is not a theoretical exercise to transform a certain amount of money into some other commodity, or some more money. Development is about people and deals with people's lives. Almost half of these people globally (nearly three billion) -- most of them are women -- strive to survive with less than 2.0 dollars a day. Notably all these people live in most of the poor countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Since it deals with people's lives, development practice should listen to what people, especially the disadvantaged people, have to say about the development process. But we often do not listen to them. In 2002, the World Bank(WB) conducted a study where around 80,000 poor people worldwide were asked how they felt to be poor and what it meant to them in their everyday lives. The World Bank series "Voices of the Poor" is a revealing document that talks about poverty as felt by the poor themselves.
The responses of the poor people are extremely significant for development practice. The perceptions of poor people pointed clearly at the fact that poverty is not merely absence of commodities and services to meet the basic needs, but rather a question of powerlessness. Aside from the importance of material assets, health and education in improving people's lives, the poor mentioned the influence of factors such as emotional integrity, respect and dignity, social belonging, cultural identity, organisational capacity, and political representation and accountability. That means poverty has multi-faceted dimensions which are least considered by many development practitioners.
The Evolution of Human Rights as Development: The development theory and research of more than last one decade starkly reinforce the views of the WB study. Poverty cannot be simply measured in terms of per capita income, as it also includes other dimensions such as access to basic services, assets, and justice. Economic growth is necessary, but not sufficient for poverty eradication - a glaring fact that justifies the persistence of poverty in even the wealthiest countries in the world. Contrary to this, development as human rights are particularly significant in maintaining the link between social progress and economic growth because they enable the persons concerned to achieve fully their human potential.
Despite the recognition of the relationships between human rights and development in the UN Charter, development was and has been in many cases pursued from a narrow economic perspective. Still this perception is deep-rooted in many individuals and organisations. However, in the light of persistent poverty, purely economic perspectives on development were progressively abandoned by most development agencies and substituted for "sustainable livelihoods" and "basic needs" approaches.
However, these approaches even could not fully account for the way in which power relations and embedded social inequalities (such as discrimination of women and ethnic minorities, etc.) contribute to the production and reproduction of deprivation, meaning the persistence of poverty. As an example, while the "need" for some of the factors mentioned in the WB study, such as material assets and education are obvious, the needs for other once are frequently overlooked. However, all these factors relate to human rights, reflecting that the poor people have a more holistic understanding of the dimensions of poverty and its root causes than the development practitioners tend to assume. That means poverty as a whole is not just lack of commodities and services, but rather a question of powerlessness. This perception is very important for all of us to grasp, which leads to a tangible development.
The WB study concluded that development should ultimately increase people's freedom to live the lives they value. This is precisely what the presently practised rights-based development tries to achieve, providing an effective framework for a holistic analysis of development, including its social, cultural, political and economic dimensions and effective tools for designing results-oriented, empowering and sustainable development strategies.
Development as Freedom: This way of perceiving development asserts to go beyond looking at development simply in terms of growth or income or opulence. Today, especially after the publication of Amartya Sen's masterpiece document, Development as Freedom, the development process can be most aptly described as expansion of substantive freedom or "capabilities of persons to lead the kind of lives they value or have reasons to value." Indeed, it is possible also to identify the capabilities with human rights as propounded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This recognition has major implications to development practice. There is much about poverty and the strategies addressing it, that is left unexplained by traditional development analysis, and consequently in development intervention. This in turn jeopardises the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). According to the latest Human Development Report (2002) of the United Nations Development Programme, for most developing countries the prospects of achieving such goals are bleak. Decrease in the share of income poor is still extremely slow, while the absolute number of poor people is on the rise. Inequalities have widened nationally and internationally. Despite all the intellectual and financial resources devoted to poverty eradication over the last century, poverty continues to persist.
It is important to note that poor people just want to live the lives they value, lives that allow them to realise fully their potential as human beings, enjoying and exercising all their rights and freedoms. Everybody, individually and collectively, has the right to realise and the obligation to collaborate in fully developing such potential. Development is both a right and an obligation in itself.
This understanding complements Amartya Sen's views that development is essentially the expansion of human freedoms - freedoms embodied in civil and political rights (participation in public life, voting, associations etc.) and economic, social and cultural rights (access to healthcare, education, shelter, work, nourishment etc.). These expanded human freedoms enhance the capacity of every individual to fully lead the "kind of lives they value" by ensuring the environment necessary for them to realise their own choices and opportunities. And this conviction has led to the emergence of the much-talked-about and innovative approach to development called the Rights-Based Approach (RBA). In fact, Amartya Sen's views are the cornerstones of this present development paradigm and we owe to him for such a striking eye-opener for us, which can definitely solve the problem of poverty -- if pursued with conviction, dedication and devotion.
The Rights-Based Approach: A rights-based approach is a conceptual framework for the process of human development that is normatively based on international human rights standards and operationally directed to promoting and protecting human rights. It seeks to analyse inequalities which lie at the heart of development problems and redress discriminatory practices and unjust distributions of power that impede development progress.
Mere charity is not enough from a human rights perspective. Under a rights-based approach, the plans, policies and processes of development are anchored in a system of rights and corresponding obligations established by international law. This helps to promote the sustainability of development work, empowering people themselves - especially the most marginalised -- to participate in policy formulation and hold accountable those who have duties to act.
The concept of rights-based approach is an overarching composite right, which comprises both CPRs (civil and political rights) as well as ESCRs (economic, social and cultural rights). This is established by the fact that RBA is defined as the right to a particular process of development that ensures the realisation of all human rights - civil, political, economic, social and cultural. The realisation of human rights is not just a legalistic process wherein courts can enforce certain rights or hold the State responsible for providing those rights. It is dependent on the existence of a particular socio-economic environment, the creation of which may require economic growth. That means, rights-based approach does not deny the need for economic growth - only the economic growth is treated as the backup for promoting development, keeping human rights as the guiding principles.
A rights-based approach views development as the process of realising fundamental human rights and freedoms, thus expanding people's choices and capabilities to live the lives that they value. Upholding human rights is crucial for guaranteeing people's well-being and securing a humane and non-discriminatory society -- and for enabling an active and engaged citizenry.
Consequently, a rights-based approach integrates human rights concepts in the development process to effectively target human freedom. Specifically, it integrates human rights principles, the normative content of human rights, and human rights obligations, particularly state obligations, in development policies and programmes. A rights-based approach puts the poor, marginalised, vulnerable groups at the core of policy and the focus of capacity development strategies. Gender analysis is an intrinsic part of a rights-approach to development - not an add-on.
Brief References of RBA: Though the Declaration on the rights-based development was adopted only in 1986, the origins of this concept lie much further back in time. Indirect references to the notion were made in various international human rights instruments in the mid-1940s and early 1950s.
As early as in 1944, the Philadelphia Declaration of the International Labour Organisation(ILO) affirmed that all human beings had the right to peruse their material well-being and spiritual development. Reference to the contents of the concept of rights-based development was also implicit in various articles of the UN Charter and the International Bill of Rights (ie UDHR and the 1966 covenants and their protocols). More specific references are: 1944 Philadelphia Declaration (Article 2), 1945 UN Charter (Article 55), 1948 UDHR (Article 22), 1968 Proclamation of Tehran, 1972 Senegalese jurist Keba M'Baye coined Right to Development, 1979 Resolution 4 (XXXV) of the Commission of Human Rights giving recognition to Right to Development, 1986 Adoption of Right to Development by the UN, and 1993 Vienna Declaration reaffirming Right to Development as universal and inalienable right.
Guiding Principles of RBA: A right-based approach to development brings certain guiding principles to the development arena. The most important and likewise implicit in the UN Charter, is that development has a responsibility in achieving the full realisation of human rights. Human rights cannot be realised without development. Development should seek empowerment both in the process and in the outcome of poverty eradication strategies.
Essentially, a rights-based approach integrates the norms, standards and principles of the international human rights system into the plans, policies and processes of development. The norms and standards are those contained in the wealth of international treaties and declarations. The principles include equality and equity, accountability, empowerment and participation. A rights-based approach to development includes the following elements: a) express linkage to rights, b) accountability, c) empowerment, d) participation, e) attention to vulnerable groups, and f) equality and non-discrimination.
Express linkage to rights: The definition of the objectives of development in terms of particular rights -- as legally enforceable entitlements - is an essential ingredient of human rights approach with the articulation and guarantee of normative links to the international, regional and national human rights instruments.
Rights-based approach is comprehensive in its consideration of the full-range of indivisible, interdependent and interrelated rights -- civil, political, economic, social and cultural. This calls for a development framework with sectors that mirror internationally guaranteed rights, thus covering, for example, health, education, housing, justice administration, personal security and political participation.
By definition, this approach is incompatible with development policies, projects or activities that have the effect of violating rights, and it permits no "tradeoffs" between development and rights.
Accountability: Rights-based approach focuses on raising levels of accountability in the development process by identifying claim-holders/right-holders (and their entitlements) and corresponding duty-holders/duty-bearers (and their obligations). In this regard, it looks both at the positive obligations of duty-bearers (to protect, promote and provide) and at their negative obligations (to abstain from violations). It takes into account the duties of the full-range of relevant actors, including individuals, States, local organisations and authorities, private companies, donors and international institutions.
RBA also provides for the development of adequate laws, policies, institutions, administrative procedures and practices, and mechanisms of redress and accountability that can deliver on entitlements, respond to denial and violations, and ensure accountability. It calls for the translation of universal standards into locally determined benchmarks for measuring progress and enhancing accountability.
For all human rights, States must have both the political will and the means to ensure their realisation, and they must put in place the necessary legislative, administrative, and institutional mechanisms required to achieve that aim.
Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, States are required to take immediate steps for the progressive realisation of the rights concerned, so that a failure to take the necessary steps, or any retrogression, will flag a breach of the State's duties.
Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, States are bound to respect the rights concerned, to ensure respect for them and to take the necessary steps to put them into effect. Some rights claimed in some jurisdictions may not be justifiable before a court, but all rights must be enforceable.
Empowerment: Rights-based approach also gives preference to strategies for empowerment over charitable responses. It focuses on beneficiaries as the owners of rights and the directors of development, and emphasises on the human person as the centre of the development process (directly, through their advocates and through organisations of civil society). The goal is to give people the power, capacities, capabilities and access needed to change their own lives, improve their own communities and influence their own destinies.
Participation: Rights-based approach requires a high degree of participation and contribution, including from communities, civil society, minorities, indigenous peoples, women and others enjoyment of civil, political, economic, social and cultural.
According to the UN Declaration on the Right to Development, such participation must be "active, free and meaningful" so that merely formal or "ceremonial" contacts with beneficiaries are not sufficient.
Rights-based approach gives due attention to issues of accessibility, including access to development processes, institutions, information and redress or complaints mechanisms. This also means situating development project mechanisms in proximity to partners and beneficiaries. Such an approach necessarily opts for process-based development methodologies and techniques, rather than externally conceived "quick-fixes" and imported technical models.
Attention to vulnerable groups: The human rights imperative of such an approach means that particular attention is given to discrimination, equality, equity and vulnerable groups. These groups include women, minorities, indigenous and marginalised peoples, prisoners etc., but there is no universal checklist of who is most vulnerable in every given context. Rather, rights-based approach requires that such questions -- who is vulnerable here and how? -- be answered locally. Development data need to be desegregated, as far as possible, by race, religion, ethnicity, language, sex and other categories of human rights concern.
An important aspect of rights-based approach is the incorporation of expressed safeguards in development instruments to protect against threats to the rights and well-being of prisoners, minorities, migrants and other often domestically marginalised groups. Furthermore, all development decisions, policies and initiatives, while seeking to empower local participants, are also expressly required to guard against simply reinforcing existing power imbalances between, for example, women and men, landowners and peasants, and workers and employers.
Equality and non-discrimination: All individuals are equal as human beings without discrimination or exclusion based on ethnicity, gender, age, language, religion, national or social origin, disability, birth, or geographic area, etc.
Conclusion: The current poverty discourse stresses the need to integrate governance issues into poverty reduction strategies because more attention needs to be paid to accountability, transparency, empowerment, responsiveness and participation of people in poverty programmes. In this respect, the human rights framework is of invaluable assistance.
It provides the normative foundation for tackling fundamental issues related to sustainable human development, and can play a catalytic role in bringing together governmental, institution-building and community-support programmes in order to tackle poverty in a comprehensive and holistic way. The emphasis on the moral and legal character of human rights, and on the obligations and duties of States furthermore promote accountability, transparency, empowerment, responsiveness and participation.
By informing all stakeholders on the (human rights) ground rules for development, "participation, accountability and empowerment" become the logical modality for future development efforts. In this way the rights-based approach becomes a programming tool at the same time that it articulates a vision for human-centred sustainable development.
The writer is a development worker attached with Manusher Jonno Foundation. He can be reached at e-mail: Shazzad@manusher.org
FOR long in the development discourse, it was the economic growth that was of central concern, with human rights remaining largely marginal. While the development discourse evolved through various phases, focusing on Gross National Product (GNP), basic needs, structural adjustment, and so forth, a special focus on "rights" was missing. The definition of development had a primary focus on economic growth and material prosperity alone, but any inclusion of freedom, dignity and overall "well-being" of the people was totally ignored, and the development was merely linked to human rights standards.
Development is not a theoretical exercise to transform a certain amount of money into some other commodity, or some more money. Development is about people and deals with people's lives. Almost half of these people globally (nearly three billion) -- most of them are women -- strive to survive with less than 2.0 dollars a day. Notably all these people live in most of the poor countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Since it deals with people's lives, development practice should listen to what people, especially the disadvantaged people, have to say about the development process. But we often do not listen to them. In 2002, the World Bank(WB) conducted a study where around 80,000 poor people worldwide were asked how they felt to be poor and what it meant to them in their everyday lives. The World Bank series "Voices of the Poor" is a revealing document that talks about poverty as felt by the poor themselves.
The responses of the poor people are extremely significant for development practice. The perceptions of poor people pointed clearly at the fact that poverty is not merely absence of commodities and services to meet the basic needs, but rather a question of powerlessness. Aside from the importance of material assets, health and education in improving people's lives, the poor mentioned the influence of factors such as emotional integrity, respect and dignity, social belonging, cultural identity, organisational capacity, and political representation and accountability. That means poverty has multi-faceted dimensions which are least considered by many development practitioners.
The Evolution of Human Rights as Development: The development theory and research of more than last one decade starkly reinforce the views of the WB study. Poverty cannot be simply measured in terms of per capita income, as it also includes other dimensions such as access to basic services, assets, and justice. Economic growth is necessary, but not sufficient for poverty eradication - a glaring fact that justifies the persistence of poverty in even the wealthiest countries in the world. Contrary to this, development as human rights are particularly significant in maintaining the link between social progress and economic growth because they enable the persons concerned to achieve fully their human potential.
Despite the recognition of the relationships between human rights and development in the UN Charter, development was and has been in many cases pursued from a narrow economic perspective. Still this perception is deep-rooted in many individuals and organisations. However, in the light of persistent poverty, purely economic perspectives on development were progressively abandoned by most development agencies and substituted for "sustainable livelihoods" and "basic needs" approaches.
However, these approaches even could not fully account for the way in which power relations and embedded social inequalities (such as discrimination of women and ethnic minorities, etc.) contribute to the production and reproduction of deprivation, meaning the persistence of poverty. As an example, while the "need" for some of the factors mentioned in the WB study, such as material assets and education are obvious, the needs for other once are frequently overlooked. However, all these factors relate to human rights, reflecting that the poor people have a more holistic understanding of the dimensions of poverty and its root causes than the development practitioners tend to assume. That means poverty as a whole is not just lack of commodities and services, but rather a question of powerlessness. This perception is very important for all of us to grasp, which leads to a tangible development.
The WB study concluded that development should ultimately increase people's freedom to live the lives they value. This is precisely what the presently practised rights-based development tries to achieve, providing an effective framework for a holistic analysis of development, including its social, cultural, political and economic dimensions and effective tools for designing results-oriented, empowering and sustainable development strategies.
Development as Freedom: This way of perceiving development asserts to go beyond looking at development simply in terms of growth or income or opulence. Today, especially after the publication of Amartya Sen's masterpiece document, Development as Freedom, the development process can be most aptly described as expansion of substantive freedom or "capabilities of persons to lead the kind of lives they value or have reasons to value." Indeed, it is possible also to identify the capabilities with human rights as propounded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This recognition has major implications to development practice. There is much about poverty and the strategies addressing it, that is left unexplained by traditional development analysis, and consequently in development intervention. This in turn jeopardises the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). According to the latest Human Development Report (2002) of the United Nations Development Programme, for most developing countries the prospects of achieving such goals are bleak. Decrease in the share of income poor is still extremely slow, while the absolute number of poor people is on the rise. Inequalities have widened nationally and internationally. Despite all the intellectual and financial resources devoted to poverty eradication over the last century, poverty continues to persist.
It is important to note that poor people just want to live the lives they value, lives that allow them to realise fully their potential as human beings, enjoying and exercising all their rights and freedoms. Everybody, individually and collectively, has the right to realise and the obligation to collaborate in fully developing such potential. Development is both a right and an obligation in itself.
This understanding complements Amartya Sen's views that development is essentially the expansion of human freedoms - freedoms embodied in civil and political rights (participation in public life, voting, associations etc.) and economic, social and cultural rights (access to healthcare, education, shelter, work, nourishment etc.). These expanded human freedoms enhance the capacity of every individual to fully lead the "kind of lives they value" by ensuring the environment necessary for them to realise their own choices and opportunities. And this conviction has led to the emergence of the much-talked-about and innovative approach to development called the Rights-Based Approach (RBA). In fact, Amartya Sen's views are the cornerstones of this present development paradigm and we owe to him for such a striking eye-opener for us, which can definitely solve the problem of poverty -- if pursued with conviction, dedication and devotion.
The Rights-Based Approach: A rights-based approach is a conceptual framework for the process of human development that is normatively based on international human rights standards and operationally directed to promoting and protecting human rights. It seeks to analyse inequalities which lie at the heart of development problems and redress discriminatory practices and unjust distributions of power that impede development progress.
Mere charity is not enough from a human rights perspective. Under a rights-based approach, the plans, policies and processes of development are anchored in a system of rights and corresponding obligations established by international law. This helps to promote the sustainability of development work, empowering people themselves - especially the most marginalised -- to participate in policy formulation and hold accountable those who have duties to act.
The concept of rights-based approach is an overarching composite right, which comprises both CPRs (civil and political rights) as well as ESCRs (economic, social and cultural rights). This is established by the fact that RBA is defined as the right to a particular process of development that ensures the realisation of all human rights - civil, political, economic, social and cultural. The realisation of human rights is not just a legalistic process wherein courts can enforce certain rights or hold the State responsible for providing those rights. It is dependent on the existence of a particular socio-economic environment, the creation of which may require economic growth. That means, rights-based approach does not deny the need for economic growth - only the economic growth is treated as the backup for promoting development, keeping human rights as the guiding principles.
A rights-based approach views development as the process of realising fundamental human rights and freedoms, thus expanding people's choices and capabilities to live the lives that they value. Upholding human rights is crucial for guaranteeing people's well-being and securing a humane and non-discriminatory society -- and for enabling an active and engaged citizenry.
Consequently, a rights-based approach integrates human rights concepts in the development process to effectively target human freedom. Specifically, it integrates human rights principles, the normative content of human rights, and human rights obligations, particularly state obligations, in development policies and programmes. A rights-based approach puts the poor, marginalised, vulnerable groups at the core of policy and the focus of capacity development strategies. Gender analysis is an intrinsic part of a rights-approach to development - not an add-on.
Brief References of RBA: Though the Declaration on the rights-based development was adopted only in 1986, the origins of this concept lie much further back in time. Indirect references to the notion were made in various international human rights instruments in the mid-1940s and early 1950s.
As early as in 1944, the Philadelphia Declaration of the International Labour Organisation(ILO) affirmed that all human beings had the right to peruse their material well-being and spiritual development. Reference to the contents of the concept of rights-based development was also implicit in various articles of the UN Charter and the International Bill of Rights (ie UDHR and the 1966 covenants and their protocols). More specific references are: 1944 Philadelphia Declaration (Article 2), 1945 UN Charter (Article 55), 1948 UDHR (Article 22), 1968 Proclamation of Tehran, 1972 Senegalese jurist Keba M'Baye coined Right to Development, 1979 Resolution 4 (XXXV) of the Commission of Human Rights giving recognition to Right to Development, 1986 Adoption of Right to Development by the UN, and 1993 Vienna Declaration reaffirming Right to Development as universal and inalienable right.
Guiding Principles of RBA: A right-based approach to development brings certain guiding principles to the development arena. The most important and likewise implicit in the UN Charter, is that development has a responsibility in achieving the full realisation of human rights. Human rights cannot be realised without development. Development should seek empowerment both in the process and in the outcome of poverty eradication strategies.
Essentially, a rights-based approach integrates the norms, standards and principles of the international human rights system into the plans, policies and processes of development. The norms and standards are those contained in the wealth of international treaties and declarations. The principles include equality and equity, accountability, empowerment and participation. A rights-based approach to development includes the following elements: a) express linkage to rights, b) accountability, c) empowerment, d) participation, e) attention to vulnerable groups, and f) equality and non-discrimination.
Express linkage to rights: The definition of the objectives of development in terms of particular rights -- as legally enforceable entitlements - is an essential ingredient of human rights approach with the articulation and guarantee of normative links to the international, regional and national human rights instruments.
Rights-based approach is comprehensive in its consideration of the full-range of indivisible, interdependent and interrelated rights -- civil, political, economic, social and cultural. This calls for a development framework with sectors that mirror internationally guaranteed rights, thus covering, for example, health, education, housing, justice administration, personal security and political participation.
By definition, this approach is incompatible with development policies, projects or activities that have the effect of violating rights, and it permits no "tradeoffs" between development and rights.
Accountability: Rights-based approach focuses on raising levels of accountability in the development process by identifying claim-holders/right-holders (and their entitlements) and corresponding duty-holders/duty-bearers (and their obligations). In this regard, it looks both at the positive obligations of duty-bearers (to protect, promote and provide) and at their negative obligations (to abstain from violations). It takes into account the duties of the full-range of relevant actors, including individuals, States, local organisations and authorities, private companies, donors and international institutions.
RBA also provides for the development of adequate laws, policies, institutions, administrative procedures and practices, and mechanisms of redress and accountability that can deliver on entitlements, respond to denial and violations, and ensure accountability. It calls for the translation of universal standards into locally determined benchmarks for measuring progress and enhancing accountability.
For all human rights, States must have both the political will and the means to ensure their realisation, and they must put in place the necessary legislative, administrative, and institutional mechanisms required to achieve that aim.
Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, States are required to take immediate steps for the progressive realisation of the rights concerned, so that a failure to take the necessary steps, or any retrogression, will flag a breach of the State's duties.
Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, States are bound to respect the rights concerned, to ensure respect for them and to take the necessary steps to put them into effect. Some rights claimed in some jurisdictions may not be justifiable before a court, but all rights must be enforceable.
Empowerment: Rights-based approach also gives preference to strategies for empowerment over charitable responses. It focuses on beneficiaries as the owners of rights and the directors of development, and emphasises on the human person as the centre of the development process (directly, through their advocates and through organisations of civil society). The goal is to give people the power, capacities, capabilities and access needed to change their own lives, improve their own communities and influence their own destinies.
Participation: Rights-based approach requires a high degree of participation and contribution, including from communities, civil society, minorities, indigenous peoples, women and others enjoyment of civil, political, economic, social and cultural.
According to the UN Declaration on the Right to Development, such participation must be "active, free and meaningful" so that merely formal or "ceremonial" contacts with beneficiaries are not sufficient.
Rights-based approach gives due attention to issues of accessibility, including access to development processes, institutions, information and redress or complaints mechanisms. This also means situating development project mechanisms in proximity to partners and beneficiaries. Such an approach necessarily opts for process-based development methodologies and techniques, rather than externally conceived "quick-fixes" and imported technical models.
Attention to vulnerable groups: The human rights imperative of such an approach means that particular attention is given to discrimination, equality, equity and vulnerable groups. These groups include women, minorities, indigenous and marginalised peoples, prisoners etc., but there is no universal checklist of who is most vulnerable in every given context. Rather, rights-based approach requires that such questions -- who is vulnerable here and how? -- be answered locally. Development data need to be desegregated, as far as possible, by race, religion, ethnicity, language, sex and other categories of human rights concern.
An important aspect of rights-based approach is the incorporation of expressed safeguards in development instruments to protect against threats to the rights and well-being of prisoners, minorities, migrants and other often domestically marginalised groups. Furthermore, all development decisions, policies and initiatives, while seeking to empower local participants, are also expressly required to guard against simply reinforcing existing power imbalances between, for example, women and men, landowners and peasants, and workers and employers.
Equality and non-discrimination: All individuals are equal as human beings without discrimination or exclusion based on ethnicity, gender, age, language, religion, national or social origin, disability, birth, or geographic area, etc.
Conclusion: The current poverty discourse stresses the need to integrate governance issues into poverty reduction strategies because more attention needs to be paid to accountability, transparency, empowerment, responsiveness and participation of people in poverty programmes. In this respect, the human rights framework is of invaluable assistance.
It provides the normative foundation for tackling fundamental issues related to sustainable human development, and can play a catalytic role in bringing together governmental, institution-building and community-support programmes in order to tackle poverty in a comprehensive and holistic way. The emphasis on the moral and legal character of human rights, and on the obligations and duties of States furthermore promote accountability, transparency, empowerment, responsiveness and participation.
By informing all stakeholders on the (human rights) ground rules for development, "participation, accountability and empowerment" become the logical modality for future development efforts. In this way the rights-based approach becomes a programming tool at the same time that it articulates a vision for human-centred sustainable development.
The writer is a development worker attached with Manusher Jonno Foundation. He can be reached at e-mail: Shazzad@manusher.org