<div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Claudio Schuftan</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:cschuftan@phmovement.org">cschuftan@phmovement.org</a>></span><br>Date: Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 12:08 PM<br>Subject: Food for a change of language thought 12<br>To: yo <<a href="mailto:schuftan@gmail.com">schuftan@gmail.com</a>><br><br><br><div dir="ltr"><font color="#0000ff">Excuse if received earlier. Had some problems with mailing list.</font><br><div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">Human Rights Reader 367 <span> </span><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span> </span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:14.0pt;color:#333333">DEVELOPMENT MEANS ‘TO BE MORE’, BUT
UNDER GLOBALIZATION IT HAS COME TO MEAN ‘TO HAVE MORE’ --TWO VERY DIFFERENT
PARADIGMS.</span></b><span style="color:#333333"> (R. Bissio)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:red"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:2.0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">Underdevelopment is not a phase on the road towards
development. Underdevelopment is the historical result of somebody else’s
development. (Eduardo Galeano)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:2.0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:14.0pt">Why does the ‘development industry’ need a total
overhaul of strategy and not just a change of language? </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">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 <i>passé</i>. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">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… </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">3. Instead of changing their
actual approach to development, philanthropies, foundations and international
NGOs just want to make people <u>think</u> 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... <span style="color:#333333">P</span>iecemeal 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. </span><span style="font-size:14.0pt">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 <u>to this
kind of <span> </span>a problem</u>.*</span><span style="font-size:14.0pt"> </span><span> </span>(J.
Hickel)<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*: 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…?).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">4.
For instance, just consider: As part of the jargon <i>en vogue</i>, 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…! </span><span>(D. Messner)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">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 <u>the equation in such a
consensus.** </u></span><u>(R. Savio)</u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>**: 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? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#3366ff"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">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 <u>biased kind of development</u>! </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>***: </span>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)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">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 <u>to represent
what I do not wish for?</u></span><u><span>
(Dileep Kamat)</span></u></p><u>
</u><p class="MsoNormal"><span>****:
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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:14.0pt">In human rights work, what is now necessary is to go a
step further and move from an aspirational to an operational mode </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">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.</span> (K. Donald, CESR)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">9. We cannot thus miss the
opportunity to denounce and illustrate how previously close-to-universally-agreed
and well-defined HR obligations are <u>not</u> 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.
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">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. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">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. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">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 <u>and</u> 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)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh
City</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="mailto:cscuftan@phmovement.org" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">cschuftan@phmovement.org</span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:14.0pt">Postscript/Marginalia</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>-‘Ethical policies’
invariably end up being lax if and when money or perks are offered.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>- 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… </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>-The
post 2015 development agenda discussions are actually geometric: </span><span>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)</span><span> In the debates of the
last two years, t</span>here simply have been persons who have extreme elliptical
convictions with whom we should not loose our time any more. (R. Ampuero)<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p></div>
</div><br></div>
</div><br></div>
</div><br></div></div>
</div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: <a href="http://commonstransition.org" target="_blank">http://commonstransition.org</a> </div><div><br></div>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a> - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br><br><a href="http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation" target="_blank"></a>Updates: <a href="http://twitter.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/mbauwens</a>; <a href="http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens</a><br><br>#82 on the (En)Rich list: <a href="http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/" target="_blank">http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/</a> <br></div></div></div></div>
</div>