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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Human Rights Reader 192<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>[No.3 of 3 in a short series on non-actors in the human rights arena].</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">HUMAN RIGHTS: WHILE SMALL SUCCESS STORIES ARE CERTAINLY POSSIBLE, NEEDED GLOBAL REFORMS ARE BEING HAMPERED.</font></span></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">1. Although the World Bank (and related international financial institutions) pay lip service to progressive human rights (HR) policy, in practice, they continue to promote centralized, unsustainable projects. All summed up, it is not an exaggeration to say that the World Bank (WB) de facto stands in the way of adequate HR policymaking. *</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">2. Despite the newest WB jargon --like "inclusive globalization" (supposedly including the concerns of indigenous people, of women and of the rural poor) -- the same does not fool many any longer, especially because it is used in a (deliberate) confusing manner. Also, their claim to be the No.1 development knowledge-broker may be true --but the question is: of what knowledge and information?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>[May this Reader then claim to be one of the knowledge-brokers-of-an-opposing-kind from the WB….?]</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">3. Looking at it dispassionately, all along, the WB has actually promoted an agenda that has little to do with the de-facto respect, protection and fulfillment of HR --and, therefore little to do with the social and political determinants of poverty. Through sometimes overt and sometimes veiled conditionalities, WB policy can even restrict the scope (and tie the hands) of poor countries to redesign projects to respect, protect and fulfill HR. The Bank thus successfully further postpones urgent structural change. </font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">4. True, the WB mentions HR and promotes these aims in some projects (but it also continues to support controversial projects with negative HR implications). Moreover, the Bank's financial commitment to HR is less than modest. [It tells us that HR are the responsibility of other agencies in the UN family…]. Currently, the funds it allocates are not sufficient to seriously promote HR in the poor countries where it lends; a look at its loans reveals the Bank's ultimate priorities. *</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">5. It seems the Bank does not feel it is dubious to suddenly expect 'the market' to be considerate towards and to ensure HR. That must be why the Bank continues to stress market mechanisms as the way they dream will address HR. …But that is not a dream, it is a nightmare. So we are left with a market-based model where key crucial decisions are left up to private investors who stick to their ideology… as though nothing had ever gone wrong. </font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">6. Unheeded, the Bank continues to promote 'aggressive 'sector reform' in poor countries, but with a twist: with the aim of mobilizing private investors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No representatives from civil society are consulted a priori on the HR issues in these reforms. It is no secret that the social and environmental track record of the same reforms is poor (if not miserable).</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">7. We note that such contradictions not only haunt the WB's HR rhetoric and the HR-damaging policy decisions it makes, they are also evident in other multilateral agencies like the Asian Development Bank. <span style="DISPLAY: none; mso-hide: all">R is not yet another approach to devHR as an organizing paradigm</span></font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">8. It should be seen as no coincidence that these strategies reflect the interests of the firmly established transnational corporations' lobby, as well as those of the current major players in the global economy. </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">…The Bank's HR policies, of course, can only be as good as those of its most influential shareholders…</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span lang="IT" style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: IT"><font face="Times New Roman">Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><a href="mailto:cschuftan@phmovement.org"><font face="Times New Roman">cschuftan@phmovement.org</font></a><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt"><font face="Times New Roman">[All Readers can be found in </font><a href="http://www.humaninfo.org/aviva%20%20under%20No.69"><font face="Times New Roman">www.humaninfo.org/aviva<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="COLOR: windowtext; TEXT-DECORATION: none; text-underline: none">under No.69</span></font></a><font face="Times New Roman">]</font></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Adapted from D+C, 34:11, November 2007, and D+C, 34:12, December 2007.</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">*: The World Bank's 2008 Development Report is a living proof of this: </font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><font face="Times New Roman">It focuses entirely on the conventional approaches of liberalization, modernization and growth. </font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><font face="Times New Roman">It claims to offer a formula to fight rural poverty and hunger, but really does little more than advocate for agricultural growth 'a-la-WB'. </font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><font face="Times New Roman">It fails to say how many people will lose their livelihoods in this path of modernization.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><font face="Times New Roman">It disregards issues like power, the self-interest of corrupt elites, rent-seeking capitalism and the pillaging activity of foreign investors. </font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><font face="Times New Roman">It wants us to believe that pumping more capital and biotechnology into rural areas and then simply relying on liberalized market forces will do to turn things around. </font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><font face="Times New Roman">It also wants us to believe that the call for good governance alone ('a-la-WB') will do the rest of the trick.</font></p>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">All this amounts to the World Bank's idea of what the 'new agriculture' should be, i.e., an agriculture in which farmers ought to be businessmen integrated into the world market (and into the production of biofuels…). (R.Buntzel)</font></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Without being utterly caricaturesque, the Report's recommendations can be summed up in the HR-inconsiderate-message of: "Get modern or get out".<span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"></span></font></p>