Human Rights and Development

         The preamble of the declaration on the right to development stated that development is a comprehensive, economic, social, cultural and political process which aims at the constant improvement of the wellbeing of the entire population and of individuals on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation in development and in fair distribution of benefits resulting there from. This declaration acknowledges the fact that development is not purely an economic or material affair but embracing virtually all aspects of human life.

Pursuing development goals blindly have swept away simple truths and realities like, a right to decent wellbeing, social security and decent standard of living, which are boosts and shortcuts to the attainment of the goals of the whole development process and activities. Hence what is needed is a change in philosophy not a change in development agendas and goals. If we uphold the principle of human rights with the philosophy that human rights can attain the much sought after development, then we will not be far away from acquiring not just development but ‘real development’. Therefore this calls for a philosophical review of lifestyle, belief systems, perspectives and worldviews which forms the foundations upon which the development edifice is built. In simple terms, put humanity in the forefront before embarking on drawing plans and agendas for development. We must imbibe the culture of humanity in order to ensure the progress of humanity.  Therefore this calls for a holistic reform of development.

Reform means the development or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory etc. A reform redresses serious wrongs without altering the fundamentals of the system. It seeks to improve the system as it stands never to overthrow it. A reform is characterised with fixing the various complex components that make up a whole as a way of redressing the whole along its original line of purpose.  Therefore a reform of development addresses the various activities, policies, strategies, plans, parastatals, institutions, organisations etc. that are geared towards attaining development, to fix them along the original purpose of development. A development reform in line with this philosophical perspective therefore entails that, recognition of the right to life enjoins governments and various other organs responsible for providing basic healthcare services to see it as essentially an entitlement to everyone, where health improves life improves.

A rights conscious philosophy of development ensures the implementation of strategic and viable welfare system and programs to make for administrative flaws of government. E.g. during periods of economic downturn, there are social safety nets on ground to ensure that citizens are not worse off. Tangible development that we see on ground proceeds from the philosophy of development on ground. The economic activities and structures is just a reflection of the philosophical blueprint. Anywhere there is a violation of human rights whether one or all, there cannot be development. What we are simply saying is that this should be our philosophy of development as it is bound to influence the means of attaining development.

Development ensures that value is placed on human lives. Therefore our philosophy of development should define development as human development. The violations of human rights only becomes much more glaring where human development is demeaned, and human development is the central engine of the development agenda as this is what the development agenda aims at. This is the ultimate goal of development. Human development is the substance of development and also the substance of human rights. Bringing these two concepts together implies that development is therefore a right to be demanded. Development is what the human society progresses towards.  Therefore our philosophy of development affects our social, political, religious, economic and virtually all aspects of our lives. Any system or institution that violates the principle of humanity by oppressing human dignity and wellbeing cannot result in any tangible development; it does not provide a fertile ground for development because in the process of abusing the principle of humanity, development is destroyed. In linking natural and human rights with human development, we are able to prescribe a philosophy for development reform. It is about conceptualizing development as the goal of mankind and the main goal of human rights and seeing human development as the substance of development.

Although enlightenment philosophers saw the attainment of natural rights as a means to attaining the dignified human life which is  human development, they failed to state out rightly that natural rights implies human development and the clamour for natural rights of man is spearheaded by the innate desire for human development.  The failure to state the goal of human development in natural rights theory, has resulted in development being drifted apart from the human being and conceived purely as an economic endeavour that cannot stand alone without an economic element.  This human development aspect was not emphasized in the natural rights philosophy of the enlightenment world instead they were mostly concerned with the concept of natural law and the prevailing political issues of the time. Although they did bring the natural rights discourses close to the principles of humanity and emphasized on the principles of human nature, they failed to enunciate and emphasize the concept of human development which was intricate and constitutes a major catalyst for the natural rights campaign.  Therefore a philosophical reaffirmation of the ultimate goal of natural rights as human development is needed. Contemporary human rights discourse has made a milestone in bringing about development in the human rights discourse, emphasizing on the human development approach through concepts like the right to development and the economic and social rights covenants which emphasize well-being.  However, these concepts hardly have a well-grounded philosophical basis or backing.

What has been termed development is nothing other than the deepest longing of the human being for change, transformation, progress, the good life, happiness, self-fulfillment and self-actualization. Hence no matter what development has been described with or constructed from, its cornerstone is human development.  Human development is the idea of the development goal of enriching human lives seeing that, the real wealth of a nation is its people. “People cannot fully exercise the freedom inherent in their civil, political and cultural rights if they are destitute, impoverished or face other forms of economic debilitation” Keita (2011:43). The integration of human rights into development is to ensure genuine and authentic development, for of what use or effect is development if there exists lack of freedom, liberty and violation of the right to life? It goes without saying that with these circumstances still on ground, any so called development attained is bound to crumble as it won’t stand the test of time because, the consequences of the violation of these rights would be the very factor that will cause it to crash. It is clearly evident that most poor countries in the world are harbours of violations of basic human rights. As such the interconnections of rights abuses and poverty gets a sound reference point.

A philosophical perspective on development looks at the substance of development instead of the forms and this substance is human development. It is about taking development back to its source. Thus a philosophical perspective on development views development as originating from the human being. Hence all other ideas and concepts of development is an extension of human development. And even human rights itself is geared towards human development. Therefore a merger of human rights and development provides the best philosophy for development reforms.