Human Rights Approach to

Development in the 21st c.

Tsegabirhan W.Giorgis Abay,

DoE, CBE, AAU, 2019-2022 Academic Year, 1st semester, 2022
 Introduction: Why Interest on Inequality, for
Development Economics
• Many millions have been suffering from abject poverty, marginalization,
deprivation, all sorts of development deficiencies. This state has
sustained in the 19th ,20th & has extended to 21th centuries.
• So understanding of development can be complete in the context of our
explicitly or implicitly stated perspective on inequality, poverty, which in
turn should be understood in the context of human rights, justice and
sustainable development, peace & stability.
• In the 21st c. humanity should explicitly come up with a theory and
mechanism to live with and tolerate an abject poverty, inequality, and
hence injustice of the 20th c or else should pursue human rights
approach to development to ensure justice, sustainable development,
sustainable peace and full-fledged security for everyone and for all in the
21st c.
• This needs to be understood in the context of nurturing ‘normative
economics’ and avoid or minimize the attention we give to ‘objective
economics’. This then should govern the political and institutional
development of a given society/economy.
Intl Politics of Human Rights Based Approaches to Development (HRBAD)

• Championed by UN Institutions but ignored by World Bank, IMF,

WTO and bilateral institutions, which however remained the most
powerful (politically and financially) institutions and actors.
• For a few decades, the link between the UN’s work on
development/ humanitarian issues and its work on human rights
was weak, mainly for political reasons: human rights had become
highly politicized—with some States prioritizing civil and political
rights and others stressing the importance of economic, social and
cultural rights—while development was dealt with more
pragmatically through technical assistance. With the end of this
global ideological divide in the 1990s, the link between human
rights and development was re-established, championed by the UN
Developmental institutions (ILO, UNESCO, UNIDO, etc.) and
increasing rate of acceptance by the Breton Wood Institutions and
Bilateral Aid Institution. (UNDP, 2012)
 Intl Politics of HRs-Human Rights Based Approaches to
Development (HRBAD)
• In 1966, two separate treaties, covering almost entirely all the rights enshrined in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 were adopted after approximately 20
years of negotiations: one for civil and political rights, the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and one for economic, social and cultural rights, the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The ICESCR
was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 16 December 1966 and
entered into force on 3 January 1976. Note that the period 1948, the year of Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, to 1976, the year the ICESCR entered into force, was a
period of resistance against the universality and indivisibility of human rights in general
and the resistance of the West to accept the ICESCR in particular. The East was failing to
respect the ICCPR while the West resisted against the coming into force of ICESCR.
(WHO, Regional office for the Eastern Mediterranean, International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights)
• The less developed countries (LDCs) have remained weak, inattentive in understanding,
accepting, and endeavoring to fulfill and realize the entire concept of HRs.
• So far HRs approach to development has not been mainstreamed in the curricula of
economics departments in the world in general (leaving a room for exceptions!), Africa
and Ethiopia in particular.
Larger Freedom -Trinity of the UN Goals: Development, Human
Rights & Security
1. “We will not enjoy development without security, we will not
enjoy security without development, and we will not enjoy
either without respect for human rights”. (UN Secretary
General, Kofi Annan, 2005)
2. Holistic approach to development, security, human rights and
democracy should be the governing policy direction.
3. Development programs should
a. Further human rights (goal),
b. Be guided by human rights (process) and
c. Contribute to the development of the capacities of ‘duty-bearers’ to
meet their obligations and/or of ‘rights-holders’ to claim their rights
(outcome).

What is the implication towards agricultural & rural

development?
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Larger Freedom -Trinity of the UN Goals: Development, Human
Rights & Security

Human
Rights

Security Development
 Development as Freedom
“Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act
of justice. It is the protection of fundamental human
rights. Everyone everywhere has the right to live with
dignity, free from fear and oppression, free from hunger
and thirst, and free to express themselves and associate
at will.” (Nelson Mandela, as quoted in UNDP, 2012)
If poverty eradication is an act of justice, and if it is all about
respecting and realizing human rights, if poverty cannot be
eradicated without transforming agriculture and rural societies,
then agricultural and rural development need to be understood
and explained in the theoretical framework of justice, fulfillment
of human rights, liberty, equality and fraternity and ensuring
sustainable peace and stability of the political economy of a given
country/polity/.

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 Development as Freedom
• Development is the process of expanding the
freedoms that people enjoy by removing
barriers such as tyranny and unaccountable
government, lack of opportunity, systematic
social deprivation, lack of functioning
infrastructure, and repression. Development
depends on people’s ability to make good
choices in their economic, political, and social
lives. (Amartya Sen, Development as
Freedom, 1999)
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Entitlement to Freedom From
 Three Generations of HRs
1. Three “generations”: First: (civil and political),
second: (economic, social and cultural) and third:
(Right to truth, development , clean environment
and peace)
2. New Categorization: Enabling rights (peace,
development, democracy), over-arching rights
(equality and non-discrimination) and end rights
(Identity, integrity)
3. New hierarchy (Prof. Alfred de Zayas):
a. Right to life (Civil and political, health and food, clean
water and environment),
b. Right to it’s own identity (education, language, religion,
family, privacy)
c. Right to one’s homeland (self-determination, no ethnic
discrimination)
d. Right to peace (Freedom from fear and war)
(source: Andreas Gross (Zurich/St- Ursanne), 2008)
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Tsegabirhan W.Giorgis, Dept of Economics, AAU
 Economic, Social & Cultural Rights, Recognizes the Rights to:

1. Self-determination (art. 1);

2. The right to non-discrimination based on race, color, sex, language, religion, political or
other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status (article 2);
3. Equality for men and women (art. 3);
4. Work and favourable conditions of work (arts. 6 and 7);
5. Form and join trade unions (art. 8);
6. Social security (art. 9);
7. Protection of the family, mothers and children (art. 10);
8. An adequate standard of living, including adequate food, clothing and housing(art. 11);
9. The highest attainable level of health and health care (art. 12);
10.Education (art. 13); Free and compulsory primary education (art. 14);
11.The right to cultural freedoms: Take part in cultural life; benefit from scientific progress:
and benefit from the protection of scientific, literary or artistic production of which one
is the author (art. 15).
(UN, 2005; Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, a Handbook, UN, New York and Geneva)
• Note that all this list suggest for inclusive politics, where no one individual, group,
collective entity is left behind.
 Right to Development
• The idea of the right to development goes back to ILO’s Declaration in 1944. It
affirmed that ‘all human beings have the right to pursue both their material
well-being and their spiritual development in conditions of freedom and
dignity of economic security and equal opportunity’ and that ‘poverty
anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere’. (Umozurike U.O.
(UNESCO), 1998)
• A milestone was reached in the UN Declaration of the Right to Development
1986, which states (article 2): (Umozurike U.O.(UNESCO), 1998)
a. The human person is the central subject of development and
should be the active participant and beneficiary of the right to
development,
b. All human beings have a responsibility for development,
individually and collectively, taking into account the need for
full respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms as
well as their duties to the community, which alone can ensure
the free and complete fulfillment of the human being….
 Government Obligation & Responsibility on Human Rights

Governments assume the obligations to respect, to protect

and to fulfill human rights (UNDP, 2012)
1. To respect: means States must not interfere with people’s human
rights (e.g., in the case of the right to water, not to disconnect
water supply without due process).
 First-generation human rights, often called "blue" rights, deal essentially with
liberty and participation in political life. They are fundamentally civil and political in
nature: They serve negatively to protect the individual from excesses of the state.
First-generation rights include, among other things, freedom of speech, the right to a
fair trial, freedom of religion and voting rights.
2. To protect: means States must ensure that third parties such as
private actors do not interfere with people’s human rights. This is
achieved primarily through the enactment of laws and the
establishment of redress procedures, e.g., by ensuring pro-poor
price regulation when water supplies are privatized. This critically
depends upon the strength of the regulatory institutional system.
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 State Obligation/Role/ on Human Rights
3. To fulfill: means States must take proactive steps. This includes the facilitation of
the realization of human rights by strengthening people’s abilities to meet their
own needs, e.g., education, employment, etc..
• 2nd generation: fundamentally economic, social and cultural in nature: a right to
be employed, rights to housing and health care, as well as social
security and unemployment benefits. These rights are sometimes referred to as
"red" rights. They impose upon the government the duty to respect and
promote and fulfill them.
• 3rd generation of HRs: group & collective rights, right to self-determination,
gender equality, right to economic & social development, health, environment,
communication rights…
• This calls for & Justifies for an active, developmental politics, that determines
the very existence of political will to realize all human rights. In view of both
government and market failures, the active government, developmental politics
call for avoiding the polarized perspective of no, minimal government or the
central planning models. Purpose & Principle driven, pragmatic, learning and
flexible government intervention which aims to capacitate the private sector to
increasingly take over the production of goods and services should guide
political and institutional development.
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 HRBAD-Contents
To ensure national policy coherence, this core content needs to guide
the objectives of development policies and programmes. The key
dimensions can be summarized as follows. (UNDP, 2012)
1. Availability: Facilities, goods and services need to be available in
sufficient quantity and equipped with what they require to function.
2.  Accessibility (physical and economic): Facilities, goods and services
need to be within safe reach for all sections of the population,
especially vulnerable or marginalized groups, such as ethnic
minorities and indigenous peoples, women, children, adolescents,
older persons or persons with disabilities. (UNDP, 2012)
3. Quality (including cultural acceptability): Facilities, goods and
services need to be relevant, culturally appropriate and of good
quality. Human rights law recognizes that a lack of resources can
make it more difficult to realize some human rights, especially
economic, social and cultural rights. Under scarcity, at least there
should be ‘progressive realization’, which allows States to realize
economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) over time. (UNDP,
2012)
 Human Rights Based Approaches to Development (HRBAD)
Needs
Needs are met and satisfied e.g.
giving boreholes toilets
Needs do not imply duties or
obligations although they
generate promises
Can be met by goal or outcome
strategies
HRBAD
Rights are realized, respected,
protected, facilitated and
fulfilled e.g. decision making on
service level technology ,pricing
Rights imply correlative duties
or obligations
Can be realized by attention to
outcome and process

Ranked in a hierarchy of Indivisible, interdependent

priorities

Charity or benevolence Quest for Justice: Charity or

benevolence does not reflect
duty or obligation

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Tsegabirhan W.Giorgis, Dept of Economics, AAU
 HRBAD-Key Principles
1. The human person is the central subject of development and should be
the active participant and beneficiary of the right to development
(Umozurike U.O.(UNESCO), 1998). This framework puts the human
person at the center of the analysis, linked to state obligations as duty-
bearers and citizen entitlements as rights-holders. Its grounding in a
consensual global legal regime creates a normative legitimacy and
consistency that may help guide development interventions. (The World
Bank & OECD, 2013, p.69 )
2. It recognizes people as key actors in their own development (rather
than as passive recipients of commodities and services) (The World
Bank & OECD, 2013, p.73)
3. Indivisibility: Interdependence and interrelatedness: all have equal
status, inherent with dignity of each person. Partial achievement in HRs
is not acceptable. Success depends wholly or in part on realization of
other rights. (UN, 2005)
4. A human rights-based approach constitutes a holistic framework
methodology with the potential to enrich operational strategies in key
focus areas (UNDP, 2001).

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 HRBAD-Key Principles
5. Universality, Equality and non discrimination and dignity: all individuals
are equal. All human beings are entitled to their human rights without
discrimination of any kind on the grounds of race, colour, sex, ethnicity, age,
language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin,
disability, property, birth or other status. (UNDP, 2012)
6. Empowerment to influence development and to claim their rights: It is a
process in which peoples capacities to demand & use their rights grows. A
human rights-based approach is not only about expanding people’s choices
and capabilities but above all about the empowerment of people to
decide what this process of expansion should look like (UNDP, 2001). It
aims at building the capacity of the vulnerable community so that they
can make an assessment of their situation, be able to analyse why there
are in that state of situation and finally to propose and take actions that
address their specific problems (The Triple A Process)
7. Participation and inclusion: Every person and all peoples are entitled to
active, free and meaningful participation in, contribution to, and
enjoyment of civil, economic, social, cultural and political development.
This means going beyond occasional consultations and requires concrete
measures to ensure that people can voice their expectations and opinions
throughout decision-making processes that affect them.(UNDP, 2012)
 HRBAD-Key Principles
8. It brings in legal tools and the entire institutional arrangement of the
entire government, legislative, judiciary and executive systems as a
means to secure freedoms and human development– laws, instead of
being confined to the judiciary and the rule of law principle (liberal
democracy version!).   (UNDP, 2001).

9. Accountability & Rule of Law: The human rights framework offers a clear
articulation of the responsibilities of duty-bearers and the entitlements of
rights-holders, establishing a strong accountability paradigm.” (The World
Bank & OECD, 2013, pp.70-71 ) Rights based approaches promotes the
development of laws, institutions to ensure fulfilment of entitlements.Good
development programming requires stakeholders to be accountable for
results. Human rights go further by grounding those responsibilities in a
framework of entitlements and corresponding obligations. (UNDP, 2012)
10. It is based on the recognition that real success in tackling poverty and
vulnerability requires giving the poor and vulnerable a stake, a voice and
real protection in the societies where they live. (UNDP, 2001).
11. Key operational principles: responsibility, accountability, transparency,
empowerment and sustainability

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Tsegabirhan W.Giorgis, Dept of Economics, AAU
 HRBAD-Key Principles

12.The Approach is anchored on compassion,

solidarity and a desire for justice rather
than benevolence.
13.Underlying belief is that there cannot be
human rights based society without
individuals who have internalized human
rights ethics, philosophy, and politics
(Jonsson, 2003).

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Tsegabirhan W.Giorgis, Dept of Economics, AAU
 HRBAD Strategic Policy Direction
• It involves changes of what we do, and raises
questions about how we do it. It provides both a
vision of what development should strive to
achieve (to secure the freedom, well-being and
dignity of all people everywhere), and a set of tools
and essential references (human rights standards
and principles).
• Our overall objective is to strengthen the capacities
of duty-bearers to fulfill their obligations and of
rights-holders to claim their rights. (UNDP, 2012)
 The Dilemma: by Way of Conclusion
• Reality: All types of problems, poverty, inequality, lack of democracy and
poor governance prevail.
• Desired state: create a developed society in all the dimensions of human
development & Democratization.
• Very undesired: Disappointing and frustrating failure in every aspect of HRs,
respecting, protection and fulfilling of HRs.
• Compromising position: evolution of HRs which involves, however, partial
success in some and failure in others . Humanities usually need to
tolerate progressive improvements in respecting, protecting, and
fulfilling human rights.
• This needs to be understood in the context of nurturing
‘normative economics’’. Up to now , normative economics has
been delegated to the third place.
• The HRs approach & introducing explicit theory of justice should
govern the political and institutional development of a given
society/economy.
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 Thanks,
That is it for Today!!!