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Key Text Making Rights Real: The Politics of Engagement

Author: M Brocklesby and S Crawford
Date: 2005
Size: 23 pages (26 KB)

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Summary

Rights based development is a people-centred approach to development based on the norms and standards of international human rights law. This workshop, organised by CR2 Social Development and Centre for Development, University of Wales, advocates a move beyond initial rights-based frameworks by focusing instead on the ‘politics of engagement’. Donors and civil society actors should recognise the political nature of development and redefine their strategy of engagement through participation in new networks and alliances to fulfil basic rights and poverty reduction goals.

This conference was organised as part of DFID's Participatory Rights Assessment Methodologies (PRAMs) project, created in 2001 to operationalise rights-based approaches by developing methods, tools and processes for implementation. By incorporating rights and entitlements into the analytical framework of development, PRAMs sought to highlight the role of power relations in poverty. Pilot projects carried out in Malawi, Zambia, Romania and Peru illustrate both the successes and difficulties in implementing rights-based approaches.

Addressing the 'politics of engagement' emerged as a major obstacle to moving the rights-based agenda forward. This illustrates the need for donors and civil society actors to:

Move from strategies based on the achievement of standards to a more dynamic approach, focusing on engaging with core values to promote greater equity and inclusion.
Encourage deeper engagement between organisations and social groups at all levels and identify appropriate strategies to engage with power structures that marginalise and exclude certain groups.
Analyse the role of cultural practices that create barriers to the realisation of rights-based development.
Use participatory approaches to ensure stakeholders and affected groups are included in the design and evaluation of programmes.
Include benchmarks and budget commitments relating to human rights in aid instruments, such as sector-wide approaches (SWAps).
Recognise the central importance of ethics, morals and values in rights-based approaches. Many donors and international financial institutions are reluctant to fully embrace these political aspects.

In addition to the need for donors to redefine the nature of their engagement in the development process, other steps need to be taken to make rights-based development fully operational, including:

Ensuring that states and other duty-bearers fulfil their obligations under international law. Clarify the roles and responsibilities of development actors at all levels to embed a culture of commitment in policy and practice.
Encouraging donors to act as 'agents of obligation.' Donors should fulfil their obligations in a transparent manner to encourage stakeholders to meet their own obligations.
Learning from the successes of the PRAMS project in Peru and Malawi, which showed that a willingness to fulfil obligations to the poorest citizens can be embedded in institutions.
Adopting a long-term and strategic approach to implementation. This may not fit with traditional methods such as project or logframe analysis but it is essential for projects involving complex social change.
Developing accountability mechanisms at all levels including support for transparent accounting and budgetary procedures.
Creating alternative evaluation mechanisms to measure 'values'. Involve civil society, community representatives and the private sector in monitoring systems.
Strengthening global networks to complement action on rights-based approaches at the domestic level. This involves spreading models of best practice and promoting collaboration among stakeholders.
Encouraging donors to engage beyond national levels to support decentralised structures and to assist marginalised people at the grassroots levels.
Promoting innovative thinking among staff to enable development officials to act as 'agents of facilitation'.

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Source: Brocklesby, M.A., Crawford, S., Harding, M., 2005, ‘Making Rights Real: The Politics of Engagement’, Workshop Report, 23-24 March 2005, London