---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Claudio Schuftan <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 12:08 PM Subject: Food for a change of language thought 12 To: yo <[email protected]> Excuse if received earlier. Had some problems with mailing list. Human Rights Reader 367 *DEVELOPMENT MEANS ‘TO BE MORE’, BUT UNDER GLOBALIZATION IT HAS COME TO MEAN ‘TO HAVE MORE’ --TWO VERY DIFFERENT PARADIGMS.* (R. Bissio) Underdevelopment is not a phase on the road towards development. Underdevelopment is the historical result of somebody else’s development. (Eduardo Galeano) *Why does the ‘development industry’ need a total overhaul of strategy and not just a change of language? * 1. The crisis of applied development approaches so far has become so patent that development practitioners are scrambling for alternative responses (unfortunately not all along the human rights pathway…). The dominant development narrative has simply not yet come to see poverty as a matter of injustice; it sticks with business as usual, endlessly wrapping it with fresh new language that is way *passé*. 2. The best strategy we see these days goes about peddling the following mantra: Talk about the poor as ‘equals’ who share our values and aspirations; emphasize that development is a ‘partnership’; stop casting rich people and celebrities as saviors of ‘the poor’; and, above all, play up the idea of ‘self-reliance’ and ‘independence’ with special attention to empowering women and girls. ‘Progressive’ Northerners love this stuff. But this new framing amounts to little more than a propaganda strategy. ‘The poor’ are still treated as an impersonal entity and there is no mention about partnerships understood as a coming together of equals, for once, leveling the playing field… 3. Instead of changing their actual approach to development, philanthropies, foundations and international NGOs just want to make people *think* they're changing it. In the end, the existing aid paradigm remains intact, and the real problems remain unaddressed --unfortunately, I fear, also post-2015 despite the SDGs... Piecemeal gains are not tantamount to long-term success! Poverty is not a natural phenomenon, disconnected from the rich world, and people and countries rendered poor need much more than piecemeal bits of charity to allow them to help themselves out of it. All of this makes it clear that poverty really continues to be a state of plunder. It is thus delusional to believe that charity and foreign aid are meaningful solutions *to this kind of a problem*.* (J. Hickel) *: It would seem then that the time is overdue to denounce safety nets and targeting as only being forms of risk management --since the only risk they really mitigate is the risk of subversion. (Can we thus say that they represent a form of common, but differentiated irresponsibility…?). 4. For instance, just consider: As part of the jargon *en vogue*, donors offer and/or demand ‘transformative policy packages’. But the problem is that these typically pay too little attention, if any, to the inherent political obstacles to transformation. Naiveté? Hardly…! (D. Messner) 5. With this said, it is not an exaggeration, then, to also denounce that the current inter-governmental system is not being able to act in the true interest of humankind (and of human rights). Look at the post-2015 agenda, the climate and the human rights (HR) talks so far: The pacts arrived-at were or are adopted by every country, simply because they carry no obligations! They are a kind of global gentlemen’s agreement, where it is assumed that the world is inhabited only by gentlemen …including those in transnational corporations (!). Carrying on business this way, is an act of colossal irresponsibility where, for the sake of international consensus agreements, not one realistic set of more radical solutions has been agreed-on and approved. It is all like in a hospital where the key surgeon announces that the good news is that the patient will remain paralyzed. The paramount issue sought is to say that the inter-governmental system can unanimously declare to the world its unity and its ‘common engagement’ --no matter how non-specific, non-binding and vague the latter is. Needless to say: The interests of humankind and of HR are not part of *the equation in such a consensus.** **(R. Savio)* **: Ought not each individual in the South then virtually be an enemy of the Northern Development Model, given that the above ‘consensus’ is ultimately imposed by a minority? 6. At this point, it is fitting to raise the issue regarding the use of the term Development. Any word has to mean one thing; it cannot represent two opposite meanings. Lately, development has come to mean increases in infrastructure, industrial growth, capitalization of agriculture, free global flow of financial capital and of technology; also, privatization, liberalization of laws regarding labor, environment and direct taxes, etc. All this has led to an alarming worldwide rise in inequality, pauperization of workers and farmers, destruction of the commons and its resources*** with pollution reaching alarming proportion: In short, a threat to peace and to life on earth itself. Therefore, no surprise that HR have all but been forgotten in this *biased kind of development*! ***: Claims that we live in an era of limited resources fail to mention that these resources happen to be made more available now than ever before in human history. (P. Farmer) 7. A few years ago, I was comfortable in using the concept of Sustainable Development. But now, I feel that the corporate world has appropriated even this qualified development concept.**** As you must see, I do not see HR being a criterion either when the mainstream media (‘the Fourth Estate’) talks of development. Then, why should a HR activist like me use the word development *to represent what I do not wish for?** (Dileep Kamat)* ****: Activist public interest civil society organizations and social movements do understand the subterfuge the corporate world uses under its HR discourse to, in fact, promote its own (development) agenda. *In human rights work, what is now necessary is to go a step further and move from an aspirational to an operational mode * 8. It is not an exaggeration to say that, so far, the HR contents of the Post 2015 Agenda remain at normative (window dressing) level at best. For instance, the ‘Six Essential Elements for Delivering on the SDGs’ proposed by the UN Secretary General, namely Dignity, Prosperity, Justice, Partnership, Planet and People are OK. But they detract from the Three Core Dimensions of Sustainable Development, i.e., the Environmental, Economic and Social dimensions --as well as detracting from the HR Framework! Inequality cannot be considered to automatically fall within the realm of the Dignity element above; doing so makes inequality caused by the non-fulfillment of HR emerge with its place diminished in the hierarchy of post 2015 development priorities; we must trumpet its importance more forcefully since equality is and will continue to be built on the bedrock of HR principles. (K. Donald, CESR) 9. We cannot thus miss the opportunity to denounce and illustrate how previously close-to-universally-agreed and well-defined HR obligations are *not* being carried over into development planning and practice. (Even the all-important post 2015 SDGs have failed us). Aiming for a ‘Shared Prosperity’ through development is a typically vague and not adequate marker of success if not coupled with gauging the realization of HR as a way to assess progress on sustainable development goals. 10. The way forward must thus be marked by seriously addressing the current dominant macroeconomic and fiscal policies that undermine not only HR, but also economic, gender, environmental and other aspects of justice in this, our ailing world. 11. Truly people-centered and participatory accountability mechanisms used at the local, national and global level require a new approach and, at the very least, a significant meaningful reform, as well as the democratization of existing institutions. This is part of what it means going into an operational mode in our work. Emphasizing the need for regulation, safeguards and mandatory reporting for private investments in sustainable development is another step in the right direction. But quite a bit more will be needed to ensure HR are respected in all development processes. 12. At all levels, the post-2015 accountability mechanisms must be made robust and comprehensive enough to cover private sector actors, public private partnerships and international financial institutions (IFIs), as well as states *and* UN agencies, demanding transparency in the name of the right to information --not forgetting to demand the application of extra-territorial obligations and demanding that tax evasion and illicit financial flows are tackled. (Post-2015 Human Rights Caucus) Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City [email protected] <[email protected]> *Postscript/Marginalia* -‘Ethical policies’ invariably end up being lax if and when money or perks are offered. - As a reminder, there are 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) being considered, namely in the areas of ending poverty; ending hunger, improving nutrition, achieving food security and sustainable agriculture as well as healthy lives, education for all, gender equality, water and sanitation, energy for all, sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work, industrialization, reducing inequalities, inclusive cities, sustainable consumption and production, climate, marine resources, terrestrial ecosystems, forests, desertification and land degradation, peace and justice, and revitalizing global partnerships for sustainable development. BUT to transform the global development paradigm, more is needed than goals… -The post 2015 development agenda discussions are actually geometric: they have angular problems that are discussed in round tables by a bunch of square-headed bureaucrats that, due to their skewed appreciation of reality on the ground, come up with obtuse solutions. (quoted by Albino Gomez) In the debates of the last two years, there simply have been persons who have extreme elliptical convictions with whom we should not loose our time any more. (R. Ampuero) -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/