Putting the ‘rights‐based approach’ to development into perspective

Abstract

This paper seeks to unravel some of the tangled threads of contemporary rights talk. For some, the grounding of rights‐based approaches in human rights legislation makes them distinctively different to others, lending the promise of re‐politicising areas of development work—particularly, perhaps, efforts to enhance participation in development, that have become domesticated as they have been ‘mainstreamed’ by powerful institutions like the World Bank. Others complain that like other fashions, the label ‘rights‐based approach’ has become the latest designer item to be seen to be wearing, and has been used to dress up the same old development. We pose a series of questions about why rights have come to be of interest to international development actors, and explore the implications of different versions and emphases, looking at what their strengths and shortcomings may come to mean for the politics and practice of development.

Notes

Andrea Cornwall and Celestine Nyamu‐Musembi are at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 9RE, UK. Email: [email protected]; [email protected]

We would like to thank Rosalind Eyben and Garett Pratt for comments, and Emma Jones and Jonathan Gaventa for research assistance. We'd also like to thank the people from international agencies who gave their time to share their views with us, and Sida, SDC and DFID for funding the work on which this article is based. All errors of interpretation remain ours.

These trends are captured in R Eyben, ‘The rise of rights’, Institute of Development Studies Policy Briefing, 2003; and evidenced in a range of recent documents from INGOs and donor agencies, from CARE's ‘Defining characteristics of a rights‐based approach: promoting rights and responsibilities’, Atlanta, 2002, to DFID's Target Strategy Paper, Human Rights for Poor People, London, 2000. We discuss different agencies' discourses on the rights‐based approach in more depth in a forthcoming IDS Working Paper, entitled: ‘What is the Rights‐based approach all about?’ (Nyamu‐Musembi & Cornwall, forthcoming).

For an excellent overview of these debates, see P Uvin, Human Rights and Development, Bloomfield: Kumarian, 2004; see also H Slim, ‘A response to Peter Uvin, making moral low ground: rights as the struggle for justice and the abolition of development’, Praxis, XV11, 2002, pp 1–5.

RC Offenheiser & S Holcombe, ‘Challenges and opportunities of implementing a rights‐based approach to development: an Oxfam America perspective’, paper presented at Northern Relief and Development NGOs Conference, 2–4 July, Balliol College, Oxford, 2001. INTRAC, 2003.

C Moser & A Norton, To Claim Our Rights: Livelihood Security, Human Rights and Sustainable Development, London: Overseas Development Institute, 2001. J Farrington, ‘Sustainable livelihoods, rights and the new architecture of aid’, Natural Resource Perspectives, 69, 2001. SLSA Team, Rights Talk and Rights Practice: Challenges for Southern Africa, Cape Town: Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2003.

J Hausermann, A Human Rights Approach to Development, London: Rights and Humanity, 1998. This is a discussion paper commissioned by the Department for International Development of the UK Government in preparation of the Government White Paper on International Development.

Others would argue, of course, that such a vision is so infused with the values of the Enlightenment that its cultural and historical specificity undermines any claims to universality. See N Kabeer, Citizenship and the Boundaries of the Acknowledged Community: Identity, Affiliation and Exclusion, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, 2002.

As the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights made clear, such obligation extends to the creation of enabling conditions rather than direct provisioning.

P Uvin, ‘On high moral ground’, 2002.

P Uvin, Human Rights and Development, Bloomfield: Kumarian, 2004.

U Jonsson, A Human Rights Approach to Development Programming, Nairobi: UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office, 2003.

Jonsson, op cit, 2003 (see chapter, ‘Programming implications of a human rights approach’).

C Ferguson, Global Social Policy Principles: Human Rights and Social Justice, London: DFID, 1999, p 23.

See Office of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, Draft Guidelines for a Human Rights Approach to Poverty Reduction Strategies, available at www.unhcr.ch/development/povertyfinal.html.

UNOHCHR, Draft Guidelines: A Human Rights Approach to Poverty Reduction Strategies, available at www.unhchr.ch/development/povertyfinal.html, 2002, paragraphs 23 & 230.

P Uvin, Human Rights and Development, Bloomfield: Kumarian, 2004, p 131.

R Eyben, ‘International development organizations and rights‐based approaches’, presentation to Rights and Power Workshop, IDS, November 2003. R Eyben & U Ramanathan, ‘Rights‐based approaches to inclusive development: perspectives on the implications for DFID India’ Mimeo, 2002.

A Cornwall, ‘Making a difference? Gender and participatory development’, IDS Discussion Paper, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, 2000; R Eyben & U Ramanathan, op cit, 2002; R Eyben, op cit, 2003; N Kabeer, op cit, 2002; J. Gaventa, ‘Introduction: exploring citizenship, participation and accountability’, IDS Bulletin, 33(2), 2002, pp 1–11.

C Nyamu‐Musembi, ‘Toward an actor‐oriented perspective on human rights’, IDS Working Paper 169, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, 2002; C Moser & A Norton, op cit, 2001.

See SLSA, op cit, 2003.

Farrington, op cit, 2001. However, this argument reflects a mischaracterisation of the principle of indivisibility of rights. Indivisibility does not mean that in working out policies in a context of limited resources it is impermissible to prioritise certain types of claims over others. Prioritisation is inevitable. However, the prioritisation must reflect reasonable use of the resources available and it must demonstrate that reasonable steps are being taken towards the progressive realisation of rights in a comprehensive manner, as required under article 2 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The process of prioritisation must also adhere to principles of non‐discrimination, equality and participation, principles which would disallow trade‐offs that result in injustice and violation of basic rights. For arguments along these lines see Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Draft guidelines: a human rights approach to poverty reduction strategies’, 2002; P Hunt, S Osmani & M Nowak, ‘Human rights and poverty reduction strategies’, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) Discussion Draft, February 2002.

See C Nyamu‐Musembi, op cit, 2002; R Crook & P Houtzager (eds) ‘Making law matter: rules, rights and security in the lives of the poor’, IDS Bulletin, 32(1), 2001.

H Slim, ‘A response to Peter Uvin—making moral low ground: rights as the struggle for justice and the abolition of development’, Praxis, 17, 2002, cited in P Uvin, Human Rights and Development, Bloomfield: Kumarian, p 128.

R Archer, Deserving Trust: Issues of Accountability for Human Rights NGOs, International Council on Human Rights Policy, 2003.

J Reddy, ‘Statement by Mr. Jaipal Reddy, Member of Parliament on Agenda Item 89: implementation of the first United Nations decade for the eradication of poverty at the Second Committee of 57th Session of Unga on October 30, 2002’, available at http://secint04.un.org/india/ind661.pdf.

M Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. N Kabeer, op cit, 2002.

F Manji, ‘The depoliticisation of poverty’, in: D Eade (ed) Development and Rights, Oxford: Oxfam, 1998, p 14.

Mamdani, op cit, 1996; F Manji, op cit, 1998; C Nyamu‐Musembi, op cit, 2002.

F Manji, op cit, 1998, p 16.

One example of contradictions within the colonial project that opened up spaces for some social groups is in the area of marital relations. Chanock discusses the example of a colonial officer and a Chewa paramount chief in North Eastern Zambia in the 1920s who took it upon themselves to grant divorces to rural women who had been abandoned by their husbands. The husbands had migrated into mining centres and towns and had entered into relationships with other women and did not remit money to their wives. Yet the area's Native Authorities and the Catholic Missionaries would not allow them to divorce their husbands. The unilateral actions of the colonial officer and the Chewa paramount chief freed them to move on and explore new economic opportunities for themselves (M Chanock, Law, Custom and Social Order: The Colonial Experience in Malawi and Zambia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, p 152).

UNDP, Human Development Report: Human Rights and Human Development, New York: UNDP, 2000.

M Robinson, ‘Bridging the gap between human rights and development: from normative principles to operational relevance’, World Bank Presidential Fellows Lecture, 3 December 2001. Available at www.worldbank.org/wbi/B‐SPAN/sub_mary_robinson.htm.

There were 146 votes in favour. Industrial countries that voted in favour of the declaration include Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand and Norway. The single vote against the declaration came from the United States. Eight abstained, including Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom. Source: I Brownlie, ‘The human right to development’, Commonwealth Secretariat, Human Rights Unit Occasional Paper, November 1989.

On this subsequent resolution, eleven states voted against (United States, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom). The total number of votes in favour fell to 133. Australia, which had voted in favour of the first resolution, abstained this time around. Source: I Brownlie, op cit, 1989.

I Brownlie, op cit, 1989, p 12.

Amnesty International, ‘The rights‐based approach to development: indivisibility and interdependence of ALL human rights’, statement of Colm O'Cuanachain, Chairperson, International Executive Committee to World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, 2002.

DFID, Eliminating World Poverty: A Challenge for the Twenty‐First Century, White Paper on International Development, London: DFID, 1997. DFID, Eliminating World Poverty: Making Globalisation Work for the Poor, White Paper on International Development, London: DFID, 2000. DFID, Making Government Work for Poor People: Strategies for Meeting the International Development Targets, London: DFID, 2001.

LH Piron, ‘The right to development: a review of the current state of the debate for the department for international development’, Overseas Development Institute, 2003. Available at www.odi.org.uk/pppg/publications/papers_reports/dfid/issues/rights01/index.html.

A workshop on ‘Rights and Power’ held at IDS in November 2003 included an exercise to draw out the key historical events that have influenced the emergence of rights based approaches in development. When the Declaration on the Right to Development was mentioned by one of the authors no more than four of the 26 participants drawn from donor agencies had ever heard of it.

See P Uvin, op cit, 2004, for a fuller discussion of the emergence of human rights discourses within the development arena.

P J Nelson & E Dorsey, ‘At the nexus of human rights and development: new methods and strategies of global NGOs’, World Development, 31, 2003, pp 2013–2026.

R Jenkins & AM Goetz, ‘Accounts and accountability: theoretical implications of the Right‐to‐Information Movement in India’, prepared for workshop Strengthening Participation in Local Governance, IDS, 21–24 June 1999. AM Goetz & J Gaventa, ‘Bringing citizen voice and client focus into service delivery’, IDS Working Paper 138, Brighton: IDS, 2001.

J Gaventa & C Valderrama ‘Participation, citizenship and local governance’, background note prepared for workshop Strengthening Participation in Local Governance, IDS, Brighton, 21–24 June 1999.

R Eyben & U Ramanathan, op cit, 2002; R Eyben, op cit, 2003; A Cornwall, op cit, 2000.

For a fuller presentation of the positions of various international development agencies see C Nyamu‐Musembi & A Cornwall, ‘What is the ‘rights‐based approach’ all about? Perspectives from international development agencies’ IDS Working Paper XXX, Brighton: IDS, 2004.

Skogly & Sigrun, The Human Rights Obligations of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, London: Cavendish Publishing Limited, 2001, p 101.

Efforts to come up with a consistent practice throughout the UN are being made through an inter‐agency forum coordinated by the UN Development Group (UNDG). The UN Development Group comprises several UN agencies and related international organizations, among them UNDP, UNICEF, UNFPA, UN Habitat, UNCTAD, the World Bank, International Labour Organization and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. For a full list of members see www.undg.org.

See Urban Jonsson, A Human Rights Approach to Development Programming, UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa, 2003.

UNDP, Integrating Human Rights With Sustainable Human Development: A UNDP Policy Document, New York, UNDP, 1998, p 7.

UNDP: www.undp.org/rbap/rights/Nexus.htm.

See www.undp.org/oslocentre/hrmap.

Interview with Sir Richard Jolly, Institute of Development Studies, 5 June 2003.

World Bank, Development and Human Rights: The Role of the World Bank, 1998.

United Nations, Economic and Social Council, Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ‘Globalisation and economic, social and cultural rights’, statement by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, issued on 11 May 1998 and available at www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/385c2add1632f4a8c12565a9004dc311/0fad637e6f7a89d580256738003eef9a?OpenDocument&Highlight=0,globalization. Similar criticism has been made by the UN Sub‐Commission on the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights. See J Oloka‐Onyango & D Udagama, ‘UN Sub‐Commission on the promotion and protection of human rights, globalization and its impact on the full enjoyment of human rights’, E/CN.4/Sub.2/2001/10, paragraph 72, available at www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/Documents?OpenFrameset. See also DL Clark, ‘Boundaries in the field of human rights: the World Bank and human rights: the need for greater accountability’, Harvard Human Rights Journal, 15, 2002, p 217.

Bank/Netherlands Water Partnership Program, Water Rights Concept Note (managed by A Subramanian & J Briscoe). For this and other relevant materials see www.worldbank.org/water.

Bank/ Netherlands Water Partnership Program, Water Rights Concept Note (managed by A Subramanian & J Briscoe). See also M Thobani, ‘Tradable property rights in water: how to improve water use and resolve water conflicts’ in: Public Policy for the Private Sector, available at http://rru.worldbank.org/viewpoint/HTMLNotes/34/34thoban.pdf. For other relevant materials see www.worldbank.org/water

See Nigam et al, ‘Financing of fresh water for all: a rights‐based approach’, UNICEF, 1998.

Sellström, Tor, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa, Uppsala, Sweden: 1999

Sida, Education, Democracy and Human Rights in Development Cooperation, DESO, Stockholm: Sida, 2001, p 2. See also Country Strategy Development: Guide for Country Analysis from a Democratic Governance and Human Rights Perspective, DESO, Stockholm: Sida, 2001. Many thanks to Helena Bjuremalm for sharing these documents with us.

Interview with Helena Bjuremalm, 4 February 2004.

OFID, Human Rights for Poor People, London, OFID, 2000.

LH Piron, ‘Learning from the UK Department for International Development's rights‐based approach to development assistance. A Report for the German Development Institute, London: ODI, 2003.

Piron, 2003, op cit, p 20

See Centre for Development Studies, University of Swansea, www.swan.ac.uk/cds/ARCHIVED‐RESEARCH/PRAMs.

See Piron & Laure‐Helene, ‘The right to development: a review of the current state of the debate for the Department for International Development’, available at www.odi.org.uk/pppg/publications/papers_reports/dfid/issues/rights01/index.html.

Piron, 2003, op cit; see also LH Piron & F Watkins, DFID Human Rights Review: A Review of How DFID Has Integrated Human Rights into its Work, London: Overseas Development Institute, 2004.

www.careinternational.org.uk/resource_centre/humanrights.htm.

CARE, Benefits‐Harms Handbook, Nairobi: CARE International, 2001; CARE, Benefits‐Harms Facilitation Manual, Nairobi: CARE International, 2001. For additional materials on CARE's experience with a rights‐based approach to programming see also ‘Defining characteristics of a rights‐based approach’, CARE, Promoting Rights and Responsibilities Newsletter, February 2002; and ‘CARE's experience with adoption of a rights‐based approach: five case studies’, available at www.careinternational.org.uk/resource_centre/humanrights/final_case_studies_merged_june_24_02.pdf.

CARE, idem.

See www.kcenter.com/phls/rba.htm.

Interview with Muhoro Ndung'u, (then) Assistant Country Director, Nairobi, 10 April 2003.

See www.actionaid.org/policyandresearch/policyandresearch.shtml.

ActionAid, Fighting Poverty Together: Participatory Review and Reflection 2001, CD‐ROM, 2002.

ActionAid‐Kenya, 2002, Country Strategy Paper 2002–2005, p 1.

ActionAid staff involved in the Sugar Campaign were summoned to a meeting convened by DFID (from whom ActionAid receives substantial funding) to ‘clarify’ their approach to the campaign. There appeared to be a perception that the campaign was an attack on British commercial interests: at the time, two British firms held lucrative contracts to manage sugar factories that were under receivership. Interview with Peter Kegode, ActionAid Consultant on Sugar Campaign, Nairobi, 15 August 2002.

C Moser & A Norton, op cit, 2001.

R Eyben, ‘Donors, rights‐based approaches and implications for global citizenship: a case study from Peru’, in: N Kabeer (ed) Meanings and Expressions of Citizenship, London: Zed Books, 2004.

In practice, things are rather more blurred, as recourse may be made to particular rights at the same time as arguing for broadly‐based facets of development processes, such as the importance of participation and inclusion.

Some development agency practitioners have suggested possible innovative ways to fill this gap. See, for example, R Eyben, op cit, 2004.

M. Moore, ‘Empowerment at last?’, Journal of International Development, 13, 2001, pp 321–329; A Cornwall & K Brock, ‘What do buzzwords do for development policy? A critical examination of “participation”, “poverty reduction” and “empowerment” ’, paper presented to UNRISD's Linking Social Knowledge and Policy conference, Geneva, April 2004.

P Uvin, op cit., 2002, p 2.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrea Cornwall

Andrea Cornwall and Celestine Nyamu‐Musembi are at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 9RE, UK. Email: [email protected]; [email protected]