PHA-Exchange> [afro-nets] Food for a capital thought

[Claudio Schuftan]

Food for a capital thought
--------------------------

Human Rights Reader 115

IT WILL BE VIA POVERTY ALLEVIATION PROGRAMS THAT HUMAN RIGHTS
WILL BE FULFILLED.

To deny people their rights is, by definition, a way to keep
them poor.

1. Human Rights (HR) are not just obligations to be complied
with; they are an intrinsic dimension of development. That is
why when they are denied --even if not deliberately violated--
the full potential of development cannot be realized. Therefore,
an absence of respect of human (people's) rights means social
exclusion and marginalization invariably persist. This, in turn,
often means little or no access by the excluded and marginalized
to productive assets.

2. As obvious as this is, suggesting rights-based solutions to
this problem always meets a high degree of resistance. This,
mainly because sustainable development is inseparable from a
rights-based empowering development.

3. Sustainable development is the distributional dimension of
the benefits accruing from the process of physical, financial,
human, natural, institutional and cultural capital accumulation.
and the economic growth paradigm pushed by the Establishment is
basically a process of capital accumulation. Only the empower-
ment of the right-less can break the economic growth paradigm.

4. This is why, Human Rights values and principles must be re-
garded as, precisely, another form of capital!

5. In order to escape poverty, HR are the form of capital endow-
ment that the poor need to accumulate (within the context of all
the forms of capital listed above). This key principle offers a
common framework to assess how violations of HR become major de-
terminants of entrenched poverty, because they directly limit
the ability of the poor to accumulate HR capital, as well as in-
directly limit their access to other forms of capital.

6. Any process to achieve collective welfare is thus permeated
by issues of HR. This means that any policy prescription in wel-
fare economics rests on the application of HR principles. This
is why HR are more than just laws, rules and regulations to be
enforced and complied with. HR must be understood as an integral
part of any initial endowment that the poor can draw upon to al-
locate, use, manage and control all other forms of capital.

7. In that way, HR contribute crucially to the efficient and
fair 'allocation of HR and all other forms of capital'. The
state-of-HR-capital of the people is the most powerful explana-
tion of how resources are allocated. This makes the mainstream-
ing of HR a must, so much so that this is to become the key ele-
ment of development work.

8. HR are thus to be seen as a significant modifier-of-the-
enabling-factors-needed-for-development. Exclusion from any form
of HR capital explains underdevelopment and poverty. Precisely
because they are uncoupled from issues of human capital and
rights, infrastructure development projects have not attained
effectiveness and have actually been of marginal benefit to the
poor.

9. HR, as an initial capital endowment, imply a number of things
in regards to equity, social justice and poverty alleviation,
e.g., wage levels depend on whether HR are effectively realized
or not.

10. For people-who-are-rich-in-all-forms-of-capital, HR (as an-
other form of capital) may not be important. For the poor it is
essential. This is why HR capital is so important in addressing
the challenges of poverty and inclusion.
In addition, HR as capital is important in relation to the ways
in which governments and societies define anti-poverty policies.
The proactive acquisition of HR capital is an essential compo-
nent of any serious empowerment strategy. This, because empower-
ment leads to a societal re-distribution of rights and obliga-
tions; empowerment ultimately affects how all forms of capital
are allocated and used in society. This is why HR must be seen
as a key dimension of development rather than as a residual fac-
tor in economic and financial decisions. To disregard the impor-
tance of HR is tantamount to keeping people in poverty.

Claudio Schuftan
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
mailto:claudio at hcmc.netnam.vn

Mostly adapted from International Social Science Journal,
No.180, UNESCO, 2004: A Sfeir Younis, Violations of HR as deter-
minants of poverty
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