Aid and NGOs in a globalised world

We hear a lot about a human rights approach to development, but achieving it is quite a challenge. One area in which a rights-based approach is being developed is through the SPHERE Charter of Humanitarian Standards in Disaster Response. This sets out standards for aid delivery in emergency settings, based on a human rights framework. It is based on the view that even in disaster settings, when people are at their most vulnerable, they still have rights and entitlements.

These ideas about human rights approaches to aid need further enhancement in the area of long-term development. There has been some pioneering work by UNICEF and some other child-focussed agencies which have developed program responses based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Similarly, women’s NGOs have taken a strong rights-based approach to women’s development, using CEDAW as a basic tool.

So there are models, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

Another area for aid to contribute is the strengthening of human rights institutions and human rights education. One major positive role for aid is to follow up the outcomes of the 1993 Vienna Conference on Human Rights. One example currently being supported by Australian aid is the formation and development of the Asia-Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions. AusAID’s assistance to this important regional structure for National Human Rights Commissions has been extremely useful.

Other work may involve training of human rights professionals such as lawyers, judges, police and others about human rights conventions and the like. We still need to get more countries ratifying, but there is plenty to do where those ratifications have already been made. Another area for support is strengthening human rights NGOs. This is a most important factor in strengthening respect for human rights. NGOs are key human rights watchdogs and human rights educators. Support would also be valuable to assist countries to develop and implement National Plans of Action for Human Rights Education.

A further role for aid would be to assist in the development of codes for corporate behaviour in developing countries, and for NGOs or independent watchdogs to monitor compliance with them.

So there are roles for NGOs

• in advocacy
• in programming (modelling approaches and using these to leverage wider action and support) and
• in research on what aid is actually doing in relation to human rights.

Not all aid is assisting this alternative approach to globalisation. Some aid is supporting existing approaches to globalisation. Some funding goes to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, bodies involved in promoting the neo-liberal agenda. Of course, it appears that the World Bank is currently split over the kind of development it is supporting. Bilateral aid is also somewhat schizophrenic, as James Cornford’s study of Australian assistance to Laos illustrates.

In a recent study of Australian development assistance to Laos, Jonathon Cornford, of James Cook University, concludes that there have been two major areas in which Australian development organisations, supported by AusAID, have played an advocacy role in Laos:

(1) to engage in the processes of modernisation and integration into the global economy; and

(2) the advancement of rural livelihoods and well being.