PHM-Exch> MDGs and human rights

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: "urban jonsson" <urban at urbanjonsson.com>,

In order to understand the relationship between the MDGs and human rights,
both concepts need to be contextualized historically and programmatically.

During the last decade two competing development approaches have emerged.
First, the Aid Effectiveness Agenda, with demands for increased
effectiveness in development cooperation, originally initiated and promoted
by the World Bank and articulated in the Aid Effectiveness Agenda at the
High Level Forums in Paris (2005) and Accra (2008) and by several OECD / DAC
meetings.

Second, the Human Rights Agenda, with its origin in the United Nations
Charter and the Univeral Declaration on Human Rights articulated at the
Millennium Summit (2000), the United  Nations Summit (2005) and in several
reports by the Secretary-General to the UN General Assembly.

There is a need to reconcile these two international agendas and many recent
efforts have also been made to do that, for example the OECD / DAC concluded
in their Action Plan that ‘there is an urgent need to close the gap between
the aid effectiveness agenda and the human rights agenda (OECD/DAC (2007),
Action-Oriented Policy Paper on Human Rights and Development).

It is important to note that not a single word about human rights is said in
the Paris Declaration. However, very soon after the Paris Declaration
several NGOs protested against this lack of attention to human rights in the
Paris Declaration. The Canadian Council on International Cooperation (CCIC)
and Eurodad made a very distinct difference between aid effectiveness and
development effectiveness (CCIC (2006), The Paris Declaration on Aid
Effectiveness: Donor Commitments and Civil Society,  Critiques, CCIC,
Backgrounder, May 2006; and CCIC (2008), Accra Agenda for Action: Moving
from Aid Effectiveness to Development Effectiveness, CCIC).  These can be
mutually reinforcing, but they may also be contradictory. Aid effectiveness,
for example, does not necessarily result in development effectiveness.

OECD / DAC has tried very hard to reconcile the two Agendas (OECD Working
Group on Aid Effectiveness (2008), Aid Effectiveness. A Progress Report on
Implementing the Paris Declaration). In a report they concluded that all
parties have made commitments to results on key issues such as gender
equality, human rights and environmental sustainability (including the MDGs,
the Beijing Platform for Action, the Rio Conventions and the Vienna
Declaration and Programme of Action) and these can be used to improve the
results-focus of development activities. It is very clear that human rights
principles and standards can be used to define the results to be achieved
and the strategies needed to achieve them. This requires equal attention to
outcome and process. There is not inherent conflict between results-based
management and a focus on human rights.

The conclusion must be that the relationship between the RBM and HRBA
depends on how ‘result’ is defined. If result includes both outcome result
and process result, there is no contradiction between RBM and HRBA. RBM then
becomes an obligatory part of HRBA.

The recognition of the construction of development as an outcome and process
is important and provides the basis for the construction of a human
rights-based approach (HRBA) to development by identifying desirable
outcomes with human rights standards (e.g. the first seven MDGs) and the
legitimacy of the process with human rights principles (e.g. equality,
participation etc.).

The case from Nepal, described so eloquently by Heather Bryant, represents a
wonderful example of the outcome / process construct, or that the ‘aim does
not legitimize the means’.

In September 2009, the OECD / DAC issued Draft Guiding Principles for Human
Rights and Aid Effectiveness (OECD/DAC (2009), Draft Guiding Principles for
human Rights and Aid Effectiveness, September 2009).  The Guidelines
suggests three human rights-based opportunities for strengthening aid
effectiveness: (1) ensure that human rights are central to the objectives of
development; (2) use human rights as a basis for building more effective and
inclusive partnerships for development at international, national and local
levels; and (3) ensure that development policies and programmes are designed
and implemented in ways that are consistent with agreed international
commitments on human rights, gender equality, disability and environmental
sustainability. This consensus suggests a strong commitment by donor
agencies to address the achievement of the MDGs within the context of the
Millennium Declaration, which stipulates human rights criteria for the
process to achieve the desirable MDGs.

But what happened with all this new insight, consensus and commitment to
address and monitor both outcome and process? In 2004, Philip Alston was
asked by Geoffrey Sachs to review the annual country MDG reports (Alston, P.
(2004)  “A Human Rights Perspective on the MDGs”, Paper prepared as a
contribution to the work of the Millennium Project Task Force on Poverty and
Economic Development).  His critical report was not accepted by the
Millennium Project and he then published an edited version of it in Human
Rights Quarterly (Alston, P. (2005), Ships Passing in the Night: The Current
State of the Human Rights and Development Debate seen through the Lens of
the Millennium Development Goals Human Rights Quarterly - Volume 27, Number
3, August 2005, pp. 755-829) . He found in his review that almost no annual
MDG report contained anything on human rights, or any other aspects of the
process, and strongly recommended that people working in development and
people working with human rights should start talking to each other to find
a way to better work together in achieving the MDGs.

How could this MDG Reductionism happen? Why does it continue to happen? Let
us look at a few common misunderstandings of the Millennium Declaration.

First, very few people in development seem to be aware of the fact that only
8 out of the 43 Goals were included in the list of MDGs. Seven of the eight
MDGs reflect outcomes, and very few are talking about MDG 8. In conclusion,
all MDGs that most agencies and governments are trying to achieve represent
desirable outcomes. The Millennium Declaration (MD) is simply not
appreciated as the major human rights document since the Vienna Conference
1993. In the Millennium Declaration it is stated that world leaders have a
‘collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human dignity,
equality and equity at the global level’ (para.2); ‘…respect human rights
and fundamental freedoms for the equal rights of all’ (para. 4); and, ‘We
are committed to making the right to development a reality for everyone and
freeing the entire human race from want’ (para. 11). All reflecting a strong
demand for human rights-based processes to achieve the MDGs.

This uncritical focus on outcomes only was criticized by the former
Secretary – General, Kofi Annan, who in an email to Mark Malloch Brown, then
Administrator of UNDP had said ‘Kofi Annan had recently chided me and others
for concentrating so much on the eight MDGs that we forget that they are
part of the Millennium Declaration which calls for very strongly for
democracy and human rights as the route to achieving the goals’.

The risk of a blind focus on the MDGs out of context of the Millennium
Declaration was recognized already at the Stamford meeting in 2003 (which
issued the UN Common Understanding on a Human Rights-Based Approach to
Development Cooperation) which was summarized in the report as ‘there is a
concern that, taken in isolation, the MDGs might lead us back into a
technocratic (input / output) approach to development’. The real issue is
therefore whether the achievement of a desirable outcome as a genuine human
rights realization OR just a privilege (i.e. there is no mechanism for the
right-holder to enforce the right).

There is an urgent need to stop the ‘MDG Reductionism’ and replace it with
the full implementation of the Millennium Declaration, with equal
commitment, emphasis and monitoring of both Outcome and Process.

A second serious mistake, or maybe even a deliberate effort to confuse, is
the fact that although from the very beginning it was clear that the MDGs
are referring to global averages, the World Bank and all UN agencies
promoted the acceptance of the global MDGs as national goals. The global
MDGs were calculated as the predicted result of 25 years from the base-year
1990 if the trends continued to be the same as the previous 25 years. This
of course means that different countries would continue to develop at
different speed. It is therefore nonsense to talk about “how can Mozambique
achieve the (global) MDGs” or ranking countries according to percentage
achievement of the (global) MDGs”. The fact is that the (global) MDGs can
very well be achieved with some countries getting worse off than 15 years
ago. This is why many statements do not make much sense, like “We do
understand that most African countries will not meet the 2015 targets. We
still have a long way to go until the MDGs are met in Africa” (Bob McMullan,
MP, Australia); or “Africa is the only region in the world where not even a
single country is on the track. We must help those countries so that they
can join on the track” (Ban Ki moon, May 2009).

Finally, from a human rights perspective there is a very important
difference between ‘promise’ and ‘obligation’. A ‘promise’ can be broken at
any time without any repercussions, so often seen with the use of basic
needs approaches. After the 1990 World Summit for Children, where the
majority of world leaders committed themselves and their countries to
improve the situation of children, UNICEF launched the journal “Keeping the
Promise”. The publication of this journal ceased when it was clear that most
leaders would not ‘keep their promises’. Ratification of international human
rights treaties, however, does not mean ‘promises’, but entails an
obligation according to international law.

With this well known distinction, it was quite surprising to read the title
of the recently issued General Assembly report, referred to in this
discussion, “Keeping the Promise: A Forward-looking review to promote an
agreed action agenda to achieve the MDGs by 2015”. We are back to a world in
which the leaders of the world only need to ‘promise’, not to be held
accountable for the non-realization of human rights. And by avoiding any
talk about the process, unpleasant ideological and political aspects of the
process, including equality, non-discrimination and participation, can
continue to be avoided.
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