PHA-Exch> Food for an unrealized Parisian thought

[Claudio Schuftan]

**

Human Rights Reader 202

* *

*IN THE SPIRIT OF THE PARIS DECLARATION ON DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION, THE
IMPROVEMENT OF FOREIGN AID IS NOT SEEN PURELY AS A TECHNICAL MATTER OF
BETTER HARMONIZATION, BUT AS A POLITICAL QUEST TO MORE DECISIVELY FOCUS
DEVELOPMENT ON HUMAN RIGHTS.*



1. Although the title of this Reader is more often than not forgotten, it is
transparently clear. But after Paris, reforms are just not working; they
have failed to tackle the root problem to make development a human rights
(HR) matter. Harmonization gets all the limelight --although it is not
working either…There are simply too many aid agencies for all of them to
understand and be convinced that they have to heed the political aspects
called-for by the Paris Declaration*.

________

*: There are 46 government-run bilateral foreign aid programs; 233
multilateral development agencies; thousands of INGOs, tens of thousands of
developing countries' NGOs; hundreds of thousands of community-based
organizations.



2. The Paris Declaration has actually increased the cost of administering
development cooperation, has led to a new planning euphoria among agencies
as donors seek a common denominator among their diverse interests…and HR are
still neglected in that common denominator.



3. Conventional wisdom is that technical cooperation is expensive, but not
very useful **.  In this view, a sizeable amount of Western aid is as good
as wasted; it is well known that of every U$10 allocated in foreign aid
bills, close to U$8 return to the donor country: there is thus very little
actual transfer of aid monies to the recipient countries.

__________

**: Often, cash transfers are a better option than the delivery of supplies
or of technical assistance; it is easier and more transparent to give money
than to provide food, for example. But cash transfers should not be
conditional since most conditionalities have a ring of paternalism and lend
themselves to clientelism. (International Poverty Center, Brasil, 2008)



4. Noteworthy is the fact that practically no donor agency ever exits the
system because of its inefficiency or lack of effectiveness, nor do the best
donor agencies get additional resources to expand. The majority of these
agencies lack real accountability as relates to the HR (or any other?)
impact of their work: …after all there is safety in numbers…and they can
hide behind statistics. They feel no pain from their failure either (if they
even perceive it). But, in all fairness, they definitely should bear
accountability for their neglect of HR, not just for the achievement or
non-achievement of their often restricted, individual project objectives.



5. This is why to debunk current foreign aid and to reorient it, HR work
needs: An agreed joint agenda, a division of tasks and constant HR-based
monitoring work on the agenda. Unfortunately, in the HR community, we do not
have either.

The time has come to act on these. Any suggestions?  Any takers?

* *

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

cschuftan at phmovement.org

[All Readers can be found in www.humaninfo.org/aviva  under
No.69<http://www.humaninfo.org/aviva%20%20under%20No.69>
]

_____________________

Adapted from D+C 35:2, Feb 2008.
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