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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">Human Rights Reader 313</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b style><span style="font-size:14.0pt">IT IS HUMAN RIGHTS THAT ARE THE CONVENIENTLY FORGOTTEN
INTRINSIC PART OF GOOD GOVERNANCE! </span></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:2.0in"><span style>Has the concept of good governance been overused and has it become a
rather insincere cliché? It is certainly old. The World Bank Development Report
of 1997 was on good governance.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">If I stick to the title,
governance assessments simply have to use a human rights perspective; they must
identify the specific problems and needs of marginalized population groups in
each country and the actions taken (or not) by government to address them.
Among other, the assessment must also identify duty bearers and claim holders
and advise on how to assess their respective capacities, the same being a) to
fulfill their human rights obligations and b) to actively claim their human
rights respectively.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">Let’s take an example:
Comparing the indicator ‘utilization of health care facilities’ of children<span style="color:black"> who live in poverty</span> in a country, with the same
indicator for the general population (or of other groups in the population)
gives us an indication of the level of equality of fulfilling the human right
to health in the country in question; the aggregated indicator of utilization
of health care facilities of the whole population thus hides the actual
fulfillment of this right for the different social groups, notably the most
vulnerable. Right? Well, how does this
relate to governance? If we take the attributes of good governance: Is it an
issue of mismanagement or corruption? No. An issue of transparency? No. An
issue of effectiveness? No. But an issue of non-inclusiveness, of accountability,
of discrimination, of missing responsiveness and of equality, YES….all these
being principles of human rights to hold governance and governments to
account.<span style> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style> </span></p><br>To read the complete Reader, go to<br><br><a href="http://wp.me/plAxa-1GV">http://wp.me/plAxa-1GV</a> <br><br>Claudio<br>