HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY Paper Presented by Misheck Gondo at the World Bank-: NAYO; Social Accountability Seminar, Harare, Zimbabwe 17 March 2014. The Government representatives here present; Honorable MP Jessy Fungai Majome, Hon Cnlrs of City of Harare Mr Gomba and Mr Madzingire, The Director Zimbabwe Business Council on Aids Mr. David Mutambara, World Bank Representative Ms Magret Matewa, NANGO Rep Ms Munyaradzi Mataruse, Representatives of forty Youth Organizations here present, Rep from World Economic Forum and other International organizations here present, representatives from Civil Society, Business, Students, Residents and, Church. All protocol observed There is an emerging consensus within the international development community to subscribe to a human rights based approach to development. Most countries have signed onto international human rights conventions that have important implications for national legislative frameworks. The Universal Declaration for Human Rights (UDHR), International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and International Covenant for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICSCER) provide general bases for rights and many states had ratified or domesticate them. An accountable government is one that pro-actively informs about and justifies its plans of action behavior and results and is sanctioned (positively and negatively).The core elements of accountability are therefore information, justification and sanction. Social Accountability is an approach towards building accountability that relies on civic engagement, i.e. in which it is ordinary citizens and/or civil society organizations who participate directly or indirectly in exacting accountability. Some questions to be asked 1. How exactly is social accountability initiatives linked to human rights? 2. In what ways are social accountability and the rights based approach complementary and when and where might they come into conflict? 3. How social accountability is linked to the broader international human rights agenda? These are the questions that motivate and guide the discussion in the paper. It has to be noted that human rights are bases for human survival in social, economic, cultural and political spheres. Taking for example the government seeks to provide Health systems, Education, Shelter, Jobs, Food, clean water, recreation facilities to people, on top of these; the government ought to guarantee freedoms for the people to enjoy the above services, these mentioned serves are Human Rights: Economic, Social ,Cultural Civil, and political. The growing developmental model favors and support “social accountability” initiatives which share many features with the rights based approach to development. The purpose of this paper is to explore the common features and linkages between rights based approaches to development and social accountability and suggest how social accountability initiatives can be strengthened by recognizing more explicitly the principles of the rights based approach. Ladies and gentlemen it is critical to dwell my presentation on five principles of the rights based approach to development, namely: • The poor should be placed at the center of the design, control, oversight and evaluation of the development projects that affect them. • The institutions responsible for implementing development programs should be fully accountable for their actions. • Non-discrimination, equality and inclusiveness should underlie the practice of development. • citizen participation and voices should be “scaled up” and linked with national and international policy processes and international rights frameworks • Rights based approach should develop an active linkage between development and law. There is an emerging consensus within the international development and academic communities that development means much more than just the growth of the Gross National Product. Amartya Sen has called for an understanding of development as “a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy” (Sen, 1999) in which both “substantive” freedoms like food, life and health and “instrumental” freedoms like free speech, transparency and protective security are equally important. • First, the poor should be placed at the center of the design, control, oversight and evaluation of the development projects, programs or policies that affect them. Empowerment and active participation of the poor is one of the backbones of Rights Based Approach (RBA). Indeed, according to authors such as Clare Ferguson (1999) and J. Hausermann (1998) the right to participation should be seen as the foundational base of the rights approach since it is the prerequisite to claiming all of the rest of the human rights. The very act of demanding the fulfillment of one’s rights requires an active subject who is in control of his or her life, a participant in his or her own process of development • Second, the institutions responsible for implementing development programs or policies should be fully accountable for their actions. As “duty bearers” they are obliged to behave responsibly, look out for the larger public interest and be open to public scrutiny. From this perspective, corruption, inefficiency and secrecy are more than just unfortunate practices. They are morally wrong and constitute an aggression against humanity. • Third, non-discrimination, equality and inclusiveness should underlie the practice of development. Development should be understood as a “public good”, similar to public parks or national defense, from which no one can be excluded and the benefits are shared among all. If development is seen to be the privilege of a few or projects are managed in an exclusive fashion favoring only those with “good connections” or from the “right” ethnic or elitist group we have departed from the RBA approach. This also means that participation should not be limited to “professional”, “well behaved” NGOs, individuals and politicians. Grassroots and political organizations should also be included. • Fourth, citizen participation and voices should be “scaled up” and linked with national and international policy processes and international rights frameworks. All too often participation occurs at the local community or neighborhood level with regard to program implementation, but citizens are not involved in the broader decisions that have an impact on the structure of national public policy. A human rights approach obliges development programs to constantly be on the lookout for the links between the local, the national and the global, between service delivery, public policy and international relations. • Fifth, Right Based Approach (RBA) encourages the active linkage between development and law. This means at least two different but related things. On the one hand, the citizen participation, accountability and inclusiveness which ground the RBA approach should be institutionalized in law, not left to the good will of public servants or the presence of specific civil society leaders. • Government Legislation should not be punitive e.g. youth, business etc To put this presentation in the context of Zimbabwe, it is fundamental to follow the Rights Based Approach were the government prioritizes the rights of people; such as services: provision of clean water, food, jobs, electricity among other. The citizens should be part of the plans, decision making and policy contributions. The current scenario is a cause for concern; were heft salaries are prioritized at the expense of services to the rate payers, corruption is unchecked, and in this case rights are suppressed. There is need to explore the above mentioned principles and solutions in my presentation as a way of insuring accountability, transparent which might act as a pinnacle to national development. Citizens have the right to demand accountability and, public actors have the obligation to be accountable to citizens. I thank you, God bless you. Misheck is an International Relations Expert with University of Zimbabwe (UZ)
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 16:56:03 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015