PHA-Exchange> Food for a newly prioritized thought

[Claudio]

Human Rights Reader 94 

 

A characterization of the current stage of human rights work.

 

1. At this stage of our shift to a human rights-based approach (RBA) to development, the questions we now hear have changed from 'What is this RBA?' and 'Why do we have to adopt it?' to 'How do we adopt a RBA?' and 'What practical differences will the RBA make?'. People are also asking for proof that programs that use the RBA have an increased impact on reducing poverty and promoting social justice. All these questions are being answered by a steadily growing number of experiences that are coming from the field.

 

2. What is clear though is that rights-based initiatives can only be sustainable if they focus on creating, widening and/or taking advantage of the political space inside which marginalized groups can (and do) claim or assert their rights themselves. A development agenda that seeks to encourage active citizenship requires an understanding of the political economy of the specific localities in which one works-in, as well as the larger (global) context within which the same is embedded. Eventually, human rights (HR) activists have to come to understand the entrenched patron-client nature of social relationships that govern nearly every aspect of rural life in the Third World. Strengthening local democratic processes and steering clear of actors that use force to achieve their means is what the RBA really promotes. 

 

3. Working with a human (people's) rights perspective requires that projects re-orient their existing organizational structure and that their staff actively engages in the complex day-to-day-politics of the localities where they work. Projects have to re-interpret their logical frameworks (if they have them) so they get actively involved in addressing the basic causes of  social, political and economic marginalization --and challenge these causes as the partners of choice of the poor. A quarterly internal project newsletter can be of help to further such a cause.

 

4. Given what is expected today, civil society organizations (NGOs included) need to appoint rights-and-social-justice-coordinators, need to prepare ad-hoc training modules on HR, need to organize 'think tank-type' working groups on HR issues who have to get involved in research and analysis of existing policy guidelines, as well as laws and regulations pertaining to HR. In short, a realignment of staffing is fundamental and a system-of-mentoring-and-guiding has to be put in place in the areas of rights and social justice, both for professional and field staff. Ultimately, staff members have to become facilitators-of-HR-processes and not mere implementers of projects.

 

5. Objectives related to HR and advocacy have to be incorporated into the annual operation plans of these organization; the job descriptions of all staff  have to be rewritten to include new responsibilities pertaining to their rights work. This will require a dialogue centered on the questions 'Who are we?' and 'Who should we be' in our work? In the end, staff members have to analyze the relevance of what-they-are-working-towards and to build their confidence as they dispel the fear that the RBA cannot be implemented. They also have to be prepared and commit themselves to take their rights work into uncharted political territory --and this should define the behaviors they should take up in everything they do, i.e., promoting empowerment, working in partnership with others, ensuring accountability/promoting responsibility, opposing discrimination and violence and seeking sustainable results.

 

6. Because of this, staff should, from now on, also, actively work to locate influential local persons who are open and willing to support the poor to exercise their rights; the process needs these strategic allies as much as it needs joining the global people's rights movement (e.g., the People's Health Movement secretariat at phmovement.org). 

 

7. To make sure that the needed learning happens, 'learning goals' must be established and progress tracked; mistakes have to be critically and collectively analyzed; a constant check that what is being applied is congruent with the core principles of universal HR also needs to be assured; adaptations to local contexts are OK, but principles are never to be compromised. 

 

8. All the above has to lead to a reprioritization of civil society organizations' work. A deeper engagement with local contexts is now needed, one that puts them in touch with the basic causes of poverty and injustice --even at the cost of taking risks when responding to conditions on the ground. Their goals have  to be clear and transparent in all debates and their messages consistent with a strong identity with the RBA. They simply have to behave differently, calling for changes in the interplay of deep-seated forces that are resulting in local situations detrimental to the rights of the poor and the marginalized. On all these, civil society has to take a public stand.

 

9. Civil society has to be prepared to sometime say 'no' to donors and to engage the latter on the new RBA. For this, only creating alliances and networks with like-minded change agents and organizations will give the needed clout for joint strategic action.

 

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

claudio at hcmc.netnma.vn 

________________________________________

Mostly taken from Promoting Rights and Responsibilities Newsletter, September 2003, CARE International.

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