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The Rights Way to Development: A Human Rights Approach to Development Assistance: Policy and Practice

Author: A Frankovits, E Sidoti and P Earle
Date: 1998
Size: 228 pages

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Summary

How can governments improve the relationship between human rights (HRs) and development assistance? How can donors and NGOs affect the realisation of rights through aid delivery? Research by the Human Rights Council of Australia proposes a new HR approach to development, arguing that governments have HR obligations and recipients have entitlements: development must start with government action to deliver these entitlements.

An approach to development assistance, based on HR, requires both donor and recipient governments to take specific steps towards the realisation of rights. As international HR law is consensual, the HRs approach expects only that governments do what they have formally committed to do. HRs are essentially active and should not merely be ‘promoted’ or ‘protected’, but practised and experienced. Participation is central to an HRs approach to development as a right, an entitlement guaranteed by international law, rather than an optional extra or a tool for aid delivery. It must be a process by which HRs: civil, cultural, economic, political and social are achieved, emphasising the fundamental HRs principle that people are subjects who determine and freely pursue their development. It must also mean not only consultation or involvement, but also active, free and meaningful participation.

However, this makes demands on both donor and recipient governments and their development agents. These demands include providing information to enable dynamic participation, actively encouraging participants to influence the development process from its inception through to its implementation, and taking active steps to overcome inequality. Governments should not determine the purpose, form and extent of participation without reference to those concerned. Practical implications of the HRs approach include:

  • Good international citizenship: aid priorities should not depend on donor country interests
  • Consultation versus participation: the wishes of those consulted must make a difference
  • Access to information: participation requires this. Governments must provide the necessary information and ensure that it is disseminated
  • Human rights awareness: all development agents must understand people’s entitlements bestowed through the international HRs framework
  • Evaluation and monitoring: project design must include consideration of what rights the project will advance
  • Policy consistency: HRs and development should not be seen as distinct.

Policy recommendations include:

  • Donor governments must use development assistance to help recipient governments achieve the full realisation of HRs through good policy dialogue.
  • Priorities for assistance should be set within donor and recipient HRs obligations.
  • Policy-makers must have a thorough understanding of the economic, social, cultural, civil and political and the obligations and responsibilities involved.
  • The HR approach involves challenges: new thinking, greater transparency and willingness to change.
  • Responsibility for these changes lies with both governments and NGOs.
  • The prerequisites for these changes are the assimilation of the principles and practical implications of the international HRs framework.

Summary adapted from www.id21.org

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Source: Frankovits, A., Sidoti, E., and Earle, P., 1998, 'The Rights Way to Development: A Human Rights Approach to Development Assistance: Policy and Practice', Human Rights Council of Australia, New South Wales
Author: Eric Sidoti , esidoti@lisp.com.au
Human Rights Council of Austrlia Inc., http://www.hrca.org.au/


 
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