WUNRN
Public-Private Partnerships – Civil Society Alerts in the Post-2015 Development Goals – Vested Interests – Examine/Advocate for Human Rights, GENDER
https://madmimi.com/p/efe7b6?fe=1&pact=33352879920
PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS CONTRAVENE THE HUMAN RIGHTS-BASED
UNDERSTANDING OF PEOPLE AS CLAIM HOLDERS & GOVERNMENTS AS DUTY BEARERS – CONSIDER
IN CONTEXT OF GENDER & THE POST-2015 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
By P. Quintos - Via Dr. Claudio Schuftan* - People’s Health
Movement PHM
1. The fact that the corporate sector is expressing satisfaction
over the SDGs and the emerging Post-2015 Development Agenda should be enough to
raise alarm bells for public interest civil society critical of the
corporate-led, ‘free’ market-centered paradigm that has dominated development
policy over the last four decades. Indeed human rights are just one more form
of currency used by TNCs when deceivingly calling for the goal of “Good
Governance and the Realization of Human Rights”.
2. In Issue Paper 10 of the UN Global Compact we read: “The UN
Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights sets out a clear framework for
this approach which is, not only a social responsibility, but also a means for
strengthening brand credentials, building customer loyalty and attracting
investment.” (Author’s emphasis) (p. 2)
3. Instead of exercising
the political will* to redistribute a significant portion of the surplus wealth
of global oligarchs through:
-progressive tax reforms,
-taxing financial speculation,
-reversing illicit capital flows,
-eliminating tax havens,
-arresting tax competition among countries,
-amending unfair trade and investment agreements,
-cancelling illegitimate debt, and a myriad of other systemic reforms,
Governments, especially from the OECD, are instead putting an
emphasis on enticing the private sector to ‘invest in sustainable development’.
*: Political will is usually understood as a greater resolve on the part of
states. But political will is not due to the benevolence of politicians --they
usually act only in response to consistent and compelling pressures. Therefore,
it is not a lack of political will, but rather the accumulation of a political
will by the powerful to oppose or stall the implementation of progressive
policies that tackle human rights abuses.
1. And what a better setup to achieve this than
Public-Private-Partnerships (PPPs) that can also take the form of ‘agreements’
that shift the risks associated with private investments to the public sector.
Clever, no? PPPs can take the form of:
-guaranteed subsidies or generous credit such as state-guaranteed loans to
farmers buying new commercial miracle seed varieties, or
-payment guarantees such as in power-purchasing agreements between a private
coal-fired power plant and a state-owned utility, or
-revenue guarantees, such as an agreement that ensures a minimum income stream
to a private toll road operator regardless of actual road usage.
The essential feature of these PPPs is that they provide private companies with
contract-based rights to flows of public money or to monopoly income streams
from services on which the public relies such as roads, schools, hospitals and
health services.
2. The above means that if, for some unforeseen reason, investors are not able
to recoup their costs, for instance from user fees, the government has to put
up the money that investors had projected, but failed to realize.
3. In short, the proliferation of PPPs is one of the factors behind the rising
contingent liabilities of quite a few middle-income countries today.
4. There are then the so-called Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships (M-SPs) which
bring together donor agencies, non-governmental organizations, private
philanthropy, private sector and other actors to address specific challenges
--from vaccinations, to agricultural research, to child health, to provision of
education, or even hand-washing.
5. There is little evidence to show that either PPPs or M-SPs benefit the most
marginalized and impoverished. The World Bank Group’s own internal evaluation
of PPPs it has supported from 2002-2012 revealed that the main measure of
success for PPPs is “business performance.”
6. The multi-stakeholder approach to governance relies on the voluntary
commitment of coalitions-of-the-willing and (for some) serves as a welcome
alternative to the private sector to instead have a legally binding framework
with clear obligations on the part of states including the obligation to
regulate private sector participants. So, while PPPs and the multi-stakeholder
approach increase the influence of corporations over public policies and
government spending priorities, they also weaken the accountability of both
big business and the state towards the people.
: Accountability, what does it entail?: Do away with conditionalities? Name
and shame? Fire or replace somebody for inefficiency or corruption? Tax
culprits? Kick out a TNC? Regulate, legislate? Bring in users (claim holders)
to the decision-making process? Demanding participatory budgets? Preempting
free trade agreements (FTAs) on human rights issues? Public interest CSOs
taking an active role as watch dogs? All of the above? Pick your choice.
7. Simply put, there is no real accountability where there are no repercussions
for states or companies failing to achieve their avowed social and
environmental commitments.
8. PPPs further: -co-opt NGOs, the state and UN agencies; -weaken efforts to
hold transnational corporations accountable for their actions;
-obscure the ultimate obligation of governments in providing public goods and
services and fulfilling people’s human rights.
9. As a consequence, the provision of public goods becomes unreliable as it
increasingly becomes dependent on voluntary and ultimately unpredictable
sources of financing. This adds pressure to fully privatize this provisioning,
thereby flouting the human rights-based understanding of people as claim
holders and governments as duty bearers compelled to account for their human
rights obligations under international and national laws.
10. And there is more: PPPs allow corporations new ways of enhancing their
public relations and making themselves appear environmentally and socially
responsible, but without real accountability.
: Anything less than full and meaningful accountability risks rendering
the SDGs a set of lofty, but empty, promises rather than the transformative
agenda that public interest civil society, social movements, the
Secretary-General and many of UN state delegates envision. It is not only about
targets and indicators, but also about financing and lining up the means of
implementation. (CESR, Human Rights Caucus, Amnesty International) And then there
is the problem of accountability fatigue when accountability mechanisms are not
binding on responsibilities and duties of the state. If not binding, these
mechanisms only bring promises and promises are broken. Therefore, not
rhetorically: How can we ask for accountability when the SDGs are not binding?
Where does this put us?
1. If nothing else, for all the above reasons, we need to ask
the following questions regarding the emerging post-2015 agenda:
-is it a people's agenda? or
-is it too much a vehicle for expanding and strengthening transnational
corporate power?
-is it an agenda that is simply about expanding and building on the MDGs? or
-is it a strategy that re-legitimizes the global capitalist model and
neoliberal globalization?
2. If the agenda that finally emerges in September 2015 turns out to be a
rehashed version or even an expansion of the MDGs, but lacks substantive action
to overhaul the dominant neoliberal development framework (which it seems to
be), then it is an agenda that will definitely perpetuate and deepen the
impoverishment, inequality, environmental degradation, and the climate crisis.
We need to examine the post-2015 process, not in isolation, but
in relation to wider trends and the broader context of development policies.
1.
We need to be organized. Many groups are doing their own bit in
terms of promoting people's agendas and alternatives, but what we are facing is
a systemic problem concerning the entire development model. So, it requires
organizational linking up of civil society across issues, across sectors, and
at different levels --from local to national, national to regional, regional to
international.
2. It is not just enough to come up with development goals
unless one challenges the roots of the problem of underdevelopment, of poverty,
of the violation of human rights, and of the ecological crisis.
3. Development and human rights justice is a term coined
by public interest civil society and social movements for their vision of a new
development model to counter the neoliberal assault.
4. Broadly, development and human rights justice comprises
five transformative shifts, namely:
-Redistributive Justice,
-Economic Justice,
-Social and Gender Justice,
-Environmental Justice, and
-Accountability to the People.
* Claudio Schuftan,
M.D. (pediatrics and international health) was born in Chile and is currently
based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam where he works as a freelance consultant in
public health and nutrition.
He is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of International Health, Tulane School of Public Health, New Orleans, LA. He received his medical degree from the Universidad de Chile, Santiago, in 1970 and completed his residency in Pediatrics and Nutrition in the Faculty of Medicine at the same university in 1973. He also studied nutrition and nutrition planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA in 1975. Dr. Schuftan is the author of 2 books, several book chapters and over fifty five scholarly papers published in refereed journals plus over three hundred other assorted publications such as numerous training materials and manuals developed for PHC, food/nutrition activities and human rights in different countries . Since 1976, Dr. Schuftan has carried out over one hundred consulting assignments 50 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. He has worked for UNICEF, WFP, the EU, the ADB, the UNU, , WHO, IFAD, Sida, FINNIDA, the Peace Corps, FAO, CIDA, the WCC (Geneva) and several international NGOs. His positions have included serving as Long Term Adviser to the PHC Unit of the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Hanoi, Vietnam under a Sida Project (1995-97); Senior Adviser to the Dept. of Planning, MOH, Nairobi from 1988-93; and Resident Consultant in Food and Nutrition to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Planning, Yaounde, Cameroon (1981). He is fluent in five major languages. He is currently an active member of the Steering Group of the People’s Health Movement and coordinated PHM’s global right to health campaign for 5 years.