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A Rights Based Approach to Development

发布时间:2018-06-08
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Can Right Based Approach to Development in Practice make Development Less Bureaucratic and more reflexive and empowering?

As the research question asks whether the rights based approach has made development reflexive and empowering and less bureaucratic, then indeed it has. This research essay is constructed in order to explain what the concept is, why is it a better approach compared to the other approaches and also example to support the argument.

According to SDC’s human Rights based approach is an instrument which provides the development practitioners with essential questions as to how and why the rights based approach should be applied to certain programs or projects. The questions generally revolve around the specific phases of project cycle management, which are: analysis of context, aims and objectives, strategic design, implementation, evaluations. (HRBA-Tool, 2007)

Secretary General Kofi A. Annan has called upon all agencies of the United Nations to make the human rights an integrated part of their framework for formulating any strategy, activity or programmes of their respective mandate. But it is essential that the following elements are kept in mind when the human rights based approach is discussed. It is of vital interest that the right holders also full fill their duties as duty bearers. It is a structural crisis when rights are not realized and when the duty bearers do not cater to their duties. Programmes asses and evaluated the capacity of the individual’s to claim their rights and also evaluate the capacity of duty bearers to fulfill their obligations. Once this information and analysis is gathered only then can strategies can be devised to build these capacities. (the state of the world's children, 2004)

Rights based approach actually puts the people on the driving seats and make them the key actors for their own development. This approach strives for both means and goals. Its core strategy is to empower the people and make them aware of their self capabilities on thing to be kept in mind id that the community of greatest importance in the eyes of the rights based approach is the marginalized, excluded or disadvantaged groups. They bring opportunities to people so they can own their own development. Instead of top down approach this approach encourages bottom up approach (the state of the world's children, 2004)

Social welfare work does work to ensure protection to the people but the discrepancy that surrounds the rural and urban areas has been a troublesome factor. Income gap keeps on increasing. Per capita income rate is not suitable for livelihood. Economic development has to an extent been counterproductive in the face of radical and sustainable development as it is further increasing the inequality. This is clearly because in order to bring about economic development such people should be brought to the platform that have the capital to invest, so basically it favors capitalists over labors. The tax structure in some cases is not progressive and brings the poor to a verge where they find themselves helpless. Awareness regarding gender equality has been improved but equal opportunities are not given to the women. They are not given higher posts such as CEO since they are considered incompetent. Similarly political awareness has spread but the concept of good governance is rarely applied .still cases of corruptions and other unethical code of conduct is found. (challenges and the human rights based approach development in the 11th national economic and social plan, 2012-2016)

According to a Kenyan Activist, Esther So moiré, who is the director of the center for Indigenous Women and Children, came to the EU-ACP countries Joint parliamentary Assembly in Budapest during the spring in 2011. In her experience with reference to Rights based approach to development she add the additional emphasis on the value of human rights based approach when it is integrated with the framework of development in New EU member States development policy. (human rights approach to development in practice, 2011)

Esther worked with an NGO center for the Indigenous woman and children with collaboration with the people of Massai. They worked for over 10 years to involve implementation of donor funded projects. The outcome of such development approach initiative comes both in positive and negative. Rights based approach brings about a great deal of value to the “impact” of development of donor-funded development projects. The Rights based approach is structured, as its name implies, on human rights. It includes empowerment, participation, non-discrimination and accountability. Interconnectivity can be found in between these principles. Taking it up by the sequence we see that in the case of empowerment the NGO has worked with the females in order to educate them on the concept of sexual reproductive health issues and rights. After indulging in conversation with them and training as well as empowering them, the females understood that there was no involvement of teenage sex, rather it was merely an awareness and understanding approach used to make the woman aware about their reproductive health. Later onwards it was noticed that the dropout rate of girls in Kajiado and in Magadi reduced. (human rights approach to development in practice, 2011)

Secondly comes Participation, with reference to this aspect the NGO initiated a project targeting a fishing community in Kenya. They brought a hundred boats and thought that abundance of boats would make a difference, but this thought backfired when a member of the community said that the maximum numbers of boats that can go into the lake are 5 and the rest of 95 will go to waste. (human rights approach to development in practice, 2011)

Thirdly, non- discrimination. Human Rights Based Approach ensure that the concept of discrimination is curbed and the government as well as non Governmental Organizations go out of their way to communicate with the disadvantaged communities and they initiate specific targeted projects that will respond to the needs and rights of minority communities. (human rights approach to development in practice, 2011)

Lastly, accountability and transparency. This can be applied when the beneficiaries are involved in the monitoring and the evaluation of projects and they can work as the detectives of the donors in order to ensure that an impact is being made with the funds sent. (human rights approach to development in practice, 2011)

Talking collectively of Rights- Based Approach, Esther mentions the result of having this approach brought to the framework of policy making in development strategy. Once she was involved in a launch of a hospital that had utilized the donor funds and the NGO was considering handing over the project to the people. And when they did so the community members were given a chance to present their feedback in which one of them said: “Why are you handing over? We always believed this is our project!” (human rights approach to development in practice, 2011)

Bureaucracy being a well established organization is expected to play a vital role in the process of development. The concept of Development Administration originally came from the USA and with this high expectations emerged towards bureaucracy. There is an idealistic framework that involves division of labor, hierarchy, neutrality and involvement of role specialists so an effective process of development can come into play. But the capacity of Bureaucracy to find its way through this framework is quite troublesome. Some thinkers find bureaucracy as an unstable environment for development. Since bureaucracy’s high focus is on the attainment of a social status and economic superiority, Warren Bennis stated that bureaucracy will be of no use in an environment where socio-economic development is not required. Bureaucracy is criticized on being authoritative and also of having a monopolized power structure since its concept comes from an elitist background and it is also brought to notice that the members of bureaucracy with an urban approach are less likely to understand the severity of problems in the rural areas. An example of a bureaucratic development approach failure can be given to the Indian bureaucracy. Development demands innovation and dynamism whereas bureaucracy finds peace within its conservative neutrality barriers constraining the development in the area. (Kumar)

In conclusion I would show my inclination towards the Rights based approach to development as being more flexible and empowering for the people as it uses the approach of bottom up instead of top down. The layman sets the structure since the layman is prone to the maximum disadvantage. They are capable of making a wiser strategy to curb the issues from the grass root level. This would later onward benefit the people in having a suitable lifestyle and also empower them to bring about change in their strategies.

Bibliography

(2012-2016). challenges and the human rights based approach development in the 11th national economic and social plan.

(2007). HRBA-Tool.

human rights approach to development in practice, a. k. (2011). minority rights group international.

Kumar, D. Brief Essay on Bureaucracy and Development.

(2004). the state of the world's children.

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