159 EX/INF.6 PARIS, 27 April 2000 English & French only UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION EXECUTIVE BOARD Hundred and fifty-ninth Session Item 3.3.1 of the provisional agenda UNESCO’s CONTRIBUTION TO POVERTY ERADICATION DEVELOPMENT, POVERTY AND EXCLUSION Towards a strategy for UNESCO Some work in progress SUMMARY As indicated in document 159 EX/9, paragraph 1.2, the purpose of the current document* is to provide selected issues and questions that could help serve to shape an integrated programme for UNESCO’s Medium-Term Strategy in development and poverty reduction. * This document has been prepared in consultation with, and with the research support of, the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Sussex, United Kingdom.(i) CONTENTS Page 1. INTRODUCTION: THE GLOBAL ANTI-POVERTY AGENDA ............................1 2. BUILDING NATIONAL COMMITMENT .................................................................4 3. A POSSIBLE ROLE FOR UNESCO ..........................................................................5 4. BUILDING OWNERSHIP OF THE ANTI-POVERTY AGENDA: SOME INITIATIVES ...................................................................................................7 A. Understanding the costs of poverty .....................................................................8 B. Poverty, exclusion and ethnicity........................................................................10 C. Democratic governance .....................................................................................12 D. Operationalizing rights-based approaches.........................................................15 E. Science and technology for rural development ................................................17 F. Conclusion.........................................................................................................18159 EX/INF.6 1. INTRODUCTION: THE GLOBAL ANTI-POVERTY AGENDA The purpose of this document is to provide some examples of issue areas in which UNESCO could make a contribution to the debate on development and poverty reduction. It is stressed that this paper simply illustrates a few topics which could appear to be inadequately addressed by other Members of the United Nations system, and in which UNESCO could have added value. It is neither intended to be a blueprint for a programme for the Organization, nor a stamp of legitimacy for it to conduct work in the said areas. It is to be taken as a contribution towards defining UNESCO’s added value in the current and future international context of poverty reduction so as to assist it in framing its Medium-Term Strategy and more immediately, the planning for an intersectoral programme for document 31 C/5. The tone and content of international debates about development and aid have been transformed over the past few years. Poverty reduction is at the forefront and the international community has collectively pledged itself to try to meet what are now generally known as the International Development Goals (IDGs) derived from the series of United Nations conferences held during the 1990s. The goals are: 1. Economic well-being: the proportion of people living in extreme poverty in developing countries should be reduced by at least one half by 2015. 2. Social development: • Universal primary education in all countries by 2015; • Progress towards gender equality and the empowerment of women, demonstrated by the elimination of gender inequalities in primary and secondary education by 2005; • Mortality rates for infants and children under five reduced in each developing country by two thirds the 1990 level by 2015; • Maternal mortality should be reduced by three fourths the 1990 level by 2015; • Access should be available to reproductive health services for all individuals of appropriate ages, including safe and reliable contraception, no later than 2015. 3. Environmental sustainability and regeneration: there should be a current national strategy for sustainable development in each country by 2005. In addition, signatories to the Rome Declaration on World Food Security at the World Food Summit in 1996 committed themselves to reduce by half the number of undernourished people in the world - from 840 to 420 million - by the year 2015. A new consensus? The International Development Goals emerged from a series of international conferences held during the 1990s. The most significant may have been the 1995 World Summit for Social Development, where the entire United Nations membership supported commitments to reducing poverty, as measured both by monetary income or expenditure (“income poverty”) and by enjoyment of health, longevity, education and literacy (“human159 EX/INF.6 - page 2 poverty”). While there are understandable reservations about the extent to which aid donors are or will remain committed to them in practice, it is clear that the International Development Goals are to be taken seriously, and that they are not just a passing fashion. The goals have emerged gradually from a set of international activities and reflect some significant recent changes in the ways in which international aid and development organizations understand poverty, development and development policy. The adoption of the International Development Goals is one marker of the decline of neo-liberalism: the ending of a period when the policy prescriptions of the international aid and development community were heavily influenced by a set of ideas rooted almost exclusively in neoclassical economic analysis. The dominant policy components of neo- liberalism were: scepticism about the motives for and effectiveness of state action; an emphasis on the value of competition, material incentives and markets; and a strong preference for private over public action. Implicit if not intrinsic to neo-liberal doctrine was a narrow view of poverty as a problem of inadequate income or consumption, rather than a broader concept, such as “unacceptable deprivation”, that might appear to open the door to public intervention in a variety of domains. The emphasis on “pro-poor economic growth” as the main solution to poverty was a reflection of the neo-liberal era. The formulation and adoption of the International Development Goals has coincided with changes in the ways in which international aid and development organizations understand and define poverty. There is no consensus on definition, but a substantial move away form purely “money-metric” (“$1 a day”) definitions towards more inclusive concepts of poverty that are acceptable to a wider range of organizations and to the poor themselves. Participatory consultations with poor people have helped drive and justify such changes. UNDP’s Human Development Reports played an important role in drawing attention to the non-income dimensions of poverty: “Poverty can mean more than a lack of what is necessary for material well-being. It can also mean the denial of opportunities and choices most basic to human development - to lead a long, healthy, creative life and to enjoy a decent standard of living, freedom, dignity, self-esteem and the respect of others” (UNDP 1997: 5). The World Bank has sometimes been considered a bastion of the economistic approach to understanding poverty. Yet its forthcoming (2000/2001) decennial poverty-focused World Development Report uses much the same language as, for example, the UNDP. In this draft, conventional poverty concepts and measures - income and consumption; access to education and health - sit alongside concerns with risk, vulnerability, voicelessness and powerlessness. It is up to the United Nations system to ensure that this broadened definition and understanding of poverty remains up-front in the progress - and measurement of progress - towards achieving the international development goals. The 2000-2001 World Development Report on poverty is organized around three concepts: • Empowerment: through making State institutions pro-poor, building social institutions and removing social barriers to poverty reduction; • Security: through protection of the poor, and better management of national shocks; • Opportunity: through building human, natural, physical and financial assets, and through making markets work for the poor.159 EX/INF.6 - page 3 The use of this language indicates a clear move away from the minimalist approach to anti-poverty policies that shaped the previous (1990) World Development Report on poverty. “Pro-poor growth” no longer has absolute priority, even within the World Bank. Part of the reason is the realization that, given existing low average income levels and high degrees of inequality, some national economies would have to achieve implausibly high rates of growth over long periods of time if the international development goals are to be achieved through economic growth alone.1 More direct action is needed. The emphasis now is on the pro-active use of public authority to tackle poverty and deprivation on a wide front. Governments have no monopoly. Here as in other domains, the emphasis is on pluralistic mechanisms, partnerships, and the huge potential contribution of civil society and the private sector as well as government agencies. This language is very familiar. Its use reflects the fact that, in relation to anti-poverty instruments as well as in respect of the understanding of poverty, there is now a substantial degree of consensus across the international aid and development agencies. What remains to be done? In many respects, knowledge about poverty is still thin, but that is changing. Many international and national organizations are busy unearthing new facts and sponsoring new research, and UNESCO is already contributing to this progress by establishing research networks and undertaking policy analyses in its fields of competence. Although we can consider (perhaps optimistically) that a number of knowledge gaps can be plugged within a few years, there will remain important caveats, of which three are suggested here below, as illustration: • The first lies in ensuring the conditions for the enduring commitment of aid donors and the international development community to achieving the International Development Goals. This cannot be assumed, and currently a great deal of attention is focused on this commitment and on donors’ performance. Although this is not an area where UNESCO has any obvious direct role or influence, it can contribute by stimulating balanced global debate over the conditions required for this commitment to endure. • The second lies in the integration of the rights perspective into the strategies and instruments for achieving poverty reduction. Here there is a degree of dissensus both within the international community and between and within governments. The international community and national governments have accepted obligations to honour rights that are poverty-reducing, both directly (e.g. the right to food) and indirectly (e.g. the right to information about government activities). Yet many of these rights, which are potentially powerful instruments in the fight against poverty, are neglected. There is a role for UNESCO in promoting the operationalization of these rights. • The third gap lies in supporting and encouraging the governments of developing countries in their commitment to poverty reduction. This is necessary partly because anti-poverty concerns and targets, including the International Development Goals, are perceived as much the creations of international organizations. This creates a 1 For example, the countries of sub-Saharan Africa would have consistently to achieve economic growth rates of more than 7% per year. For an analysis of the prospects of achieving the International Development Targets, see Demery and Walton 1999.159 EX/INF.6 - page 4 problem of local ownership over the poverty reduction agenda and it is here - in generating “local” commitment to effective anti-poverty strategies - that UNESCO has one major role. 2. BUILDING NATIONAL COMMITMENT History has shown very clearly that one cannot constructively transform a society from the outside. All genuine social transformations have been initiated from within the society, even though in many cases the genesis for such transformation lay in the cross- fertilization of ideas and experiences from different societies Kothari, 1993: 152. Understanding of the extent and character of poverty and of the efficacy of means to reduce it must be matched with the main anti-poverty instrument: the national governments of poor countries and the socio-economic groups that they represent. • More than three quarters of all countries have poverty estimates, more than two thirds have plans for reducing poverty, but less than one third have set targets for eradicating extreme poverty or substantially reducing overall poverty (UNDP 2000). • Very few countries have genuine action plans with explicit targets, adequate budgets, effective organizations - most have vaguely formulated strategies. Many merely incorporate poverty into national planning (UNDP 2000). There is no reason to suppose, that because the international community is gearing up to tackle poverty, very much has changed at the national level. The IDGs did not originate nationally or locally, and this leads to an agenda that is still owned internationally, despite efforts to devolve ownership to national levels. Why may it be difficult for national governments to retain poverty reduction in general as a national priority, and in particular, commitment to the International Development Goals as a key objective? Perhaps in some cases the answer does lie in hard, conflictual domestic politics: groups that are not poor do not see that it is in their own interests for poverty to be reduced. However, the political situation is in most cases more tractable. One suggestion is that population groups that are not poor often do not realize the extent to which they stand to benefit from poverty reduction. The capacity for these groups to empathize with the poor can be very much shaped by the ways in which poverty is presented in public media. More informed policymaking at national and international levels can help reduce the following four factors that may be obstacles to harnessing the commitment of national governments to poverty reduction: • The analysis of the poverty problem is in large degree driven by international aid and development organizations. Motivated by pressures to appear neutral and technocratic, and to deal in numbers that are comparable across countries, these organizations naturally present poverty in quantitative and monetary terms. Poverty is a matter of so many people living on less than a dollar a day. These terms do not automatically resonate within local contexts and languages: they do not themselves constitute compelling arguments that will help politicians, citizens and public servants to mobilize commitment and resources to reduce poverty. • Partly because of these international influences on the analysis and presentation of poverty, very little attention is paid to the costs of poverty for the non-poor or for159 EX/INF.6 - page 5 society as a whole. The (longer-term) arguments about the positive societal consequences of reducing poverty, that have often been influential in Europe over recent centuries, are not voiced sufficiently often in contemporary poor countries, and not adequately backed by research and evidence. • This lukewarm national commitment to what are viewed as aid donors’ concerns about poverty is sometimes compounded by the ways in which aid donors in practice put strong pressures on aid recipient governments to adopt standard approaches and procedures, sometimes at considerable cost. The current process of producing national Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) illustrates the point. Aid donors provide many assurances that PRSPs should be voluntary, that the process should be nationally determined, and the strategies should reflect national circumstances. In practice, it is widely believed that having a PRSP will soon become a condition for aid. Early evidence indicates that both national processes and the resultant strategies are relatively standardized, much influenced by international consultants, and not genuinely rooted in or owned by the country in whose name they are written. Similarly, there is belief among some developing countries that donor agencies and nations are not themselves very committed to poverty reduction if that conflicts with their other domestic concerns and objectives. In sum, the international anti-poverty agenda is internationally driven, and for that reason is not adequately “owned” by the poor themselves, by governments and by influential population groups in developing countries. It needs to be locally rooted if commitment is to be built. 3. A POSSIBLE ROLE FOR UNESCO International organizations have played the main role in putting poverty back on the international development agenda. Most of them have recognized areas of responsibility and expertise: • OECD/DAC has been contributing to discussions around setting the International Development Goals, and will continue to play a role in extending them and monitoring performance. • The World Bank has strong research and analytic capacity in relation to issues of income measures of poverty and economic vulnerability. • UNDP has in the past played a major role in obtaining recognition of the importance of treating the non-economic dimensions of poverty. It has now established itself as the principal United Nations organization dealing with the linkages between poverty and governance. • A number of agencies specialize in improving the delivery of poverty-reducing programmes: UNICEF (education and health for children); WHO (Health for All); and IFAD (small-scale farming). UNESCO can continue to contribute to this global effort by sharpening the focus on poverty reduction within its existing activities around science and technology, social sciences, education, culture and communications. Aside from this effort, this document makes some proposals for UNESCO to develop a distinct poverty-focused initiative that will:159 EX/INF.6 - page 6 • Take advantage of UNESCO’s unique capacities and mandate. • Cooperate with other United Nations Agencies and provide expertise that complements their strengths and programmes already established in the field. • Address important issues that are neglected by these other organizations. • Build balanced global debate on the issue of development and poverty reduction. This illustrative initiative addresses a major gap in the current agenda: the lack of attention to the issue of commitment against poverty on the part of national political authorities in developing countries. As an illustration for an intersectoral programme, the proposed initiative is titled “Building National Ownership of the Anti-Poverty Agenda”. The overall objectives are: • To support national governments in maintaining their commitment to poverty reduction. • To do this in a way that will increase the voice and influence of the socially excluded poor. • In consequence of the above, to develop a more genuinely international anti-poverty agenda, that reflects national diversity and the plurality of feasible approaches to poverty reduction. There are three major components to the strategy behind such an initiative: • To help provide greater voice for the socially excluded poor in both national and international debates about poverty. • To help develop a sympathetic awareness, primarily within national arenas, of the overall societal costs of continuing poverty and of the potential societal benefits of rapid poverty reduction. • To help build national debates that are both informed by this sympathetic awareness of the societal costs of poverty and framed increasingly in terms of local understandings about the character, causes of and solutions to poverty. Why should this difficult and intangible task of “building national ownership of the anti- poverty agenda” fall to UNESCO? Because UNESCO has a set of comparative advantages in this field: • UNESCO’s research and communications capacity - and its relatively limited focus on funding activities and field programme implementation - gives it a relative strength in an activity that primarily involves changing attitudes and perceptions. • This is an area involving difficult and sensitive political and cultural concerns around poverty (as a problem) and rights (as a potential and underused anti-poverty instrument). UNESCO has experience of these issues and the credibility, mandate and capacity to engage with them.159 EX/INF.6 - page 7 • UNESCO is unique among international organizations in that it has a broad mandate that crosses many sectors and that facilitates providing expertise for an integrated approach to development and poverty reduction. 4. BUILDING NATIONAL OWNERSHIP OF THE ANTI-POVERTY AGENDA: SOME INITIATIVES Described below are four examples of areas that could fall within the Organization’s work in poverty reduction. It is stressed that the four elements are deliberately non-sectoral in terms of UNESCO’s institutional structure and have been framed in terms of key issues. This is in line with the logic that poverty reduction strategies need to be integrated and cross-sectoral. It is obvious that within such issue areas - or indeed other initiatives that could be proposed in the ongoing debate regarding the Organization’s contribution to poverty reduction - the specific contributions of education, science and technology, culture, communication and social science need to be elaborated within each of the four components. These contributions should be defined in line with the objectives of the components. Further, the sets of activities suggested within each of the four areas are simply illustrative and serve the purpose of maintaining the link between the suggested objectives and the performance measurement. The proposed illustrative initiative therefore comprises four components. They are mutually supporting, in that they each address a dimension of the broader strategy of building national ownership of the anti-poverty agenda. They are chosen because (a) they address gaps in the current international anti-poverty agenda and (b) they lie within the competence, mandate and comparative advantage of UNESCO. It follows that this is not a tightly integrated package. Some initiatives could be omitted or amended without undermining the validity of the programme. Conversely, there is scope to add additional initiatives that conform to the overall vision. In some cases it is possible to propose in some detail the shape that these initiatives should take. In other cases, further exploration is required. The key features and objectives of these four initiatives are as follows: • Understanding the costs of poverty: The main objective is to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation, especially at the national level, of the ways in which poverty impacts adversely on the poor, the non-poor and on society as a whole. The national dialogue that this implies will help root discussions of poverty within local cultures, idioms and cultures. • Poverty, exclusion and ethnicity: The immediate aim is to improve our policy- oriented understanding of the mechanisms that, within countries, lead to the concentration of poverty and disadvantage within particular socio-cultural groups, particularly on the basis of ethnic factors. The longer-term aim is that the national dialogues and understandings of poverty mentioned above should include in a positive way groups (groups excluded and isolated on ethnic and other premises such as gender, age, etc.) that are often severely disadvantaged within national arenas. • Democratic governance: Greater transparency in the public domain about those activities of government that impinge directly on the poor can be a valuable tool in the fight against poverty. It can in particular help empower poor people collectively and foster their participation in public policy-making. This initiative has two aims.159 EX/INF.6 - page 8 One is to provide indirect support to efforts to promote that transparency. The other is to promote awareness of the potential significance of local rights to information in anti-poverty programmes. The latter objective is one component of the broader goal of incorporating the concerns of the poor and excluded more effectively into debates about poverty. • Operationalizing rights-based approaches: This initiative aims to explore ways for transforming international rhetorical declarations concerning civil and political, and economic, social and cultural rights into actual rights that empower the poor, by addressing problems of enforceability. At the national and local levels, this initiative will pursue options for assisting the poor and socially excluded to achieve their rights. • Science and technology for rural development: This preliminary initiative seeks to strengthen UNESCO’s impact on rural development by enhancing its responsibility in technology, science and science policy and their relation to poverty reduction. Although less completely defined than the above four areas, its aim is to enhance the contribution of basic and social and human sciences, engineering and technological development to assist governments in meeting the international development goal of reducing by half the number of malnourished people in the world. These five examples are conceived as elements of a programming that is results- oriented. It is expected that each individual initiative should be implemented in a time-bound way, normally over a period of five to six years, and that it should be clearly understood from the beginning that time extensions are possible only in the most exceptional circumstances. This would provide the staff responsible with a strong incentive to ensure impact.1 The use of the results-oriented approach poses challenges due to the nature of the ultimate objectives of the programme. These are to change understandings of the nature of poverty; and to provide greater voice for excluded groups within this process of changing understandings. Using the logical framework language of inputs-outputs-impacts-outcomes, the ultimate objectives (i.e. the intended outcomes) of this programme are relatively intangible, and therefore difficult to specify, monitor or evaluate. The discussion of issues of Verifying Performance in relation to each initiative is mainly directed at the outputs- impacts section of the causal chain. A. Understanding the costs of poverty Theme The extent to which international commitment to meeting poverty reduction targets can be translated into practice depends to a large degree on the real commitment of the national governments of poor countries. Poverty reduction is only one among governments’ goals, and it may conflict with others (see Moore and Putzel 1999). This commitment cannot reliably be measured or tested, except by observing what governments do in particular circumstances. However, comparative and historical experience indicates that the degree to which national governments and politically influential social groups become committed to poverty reduction can be significantly influenced by their understanding of the character and consequences of poverty. Two dimensions of this understanding are of special significance. 1 The timing of each initiative would depend on a range of factors that cannot be taken into account here. Precise timings would have to be decided later, in further discussions around progamming elements.159 EX/INF.6 - page 9 The first is an understanding of the extent to which poverty imposes, on society as a whole, indirect costs that could be alleviated by more effective anti-poverty policies - notably, in the contemporary world, through: • Social disintegration; • Diseases that disproportionately afflict the poor but which are easily communicable to other social groups; • Obstacles to national economic development and international competitiveness due to an underqualified and uneducated labour force; • Crime, particularly where this is seen to be caused by deprivation; • Migration, especially to over-crowded cities. In sum, poverty reduction is a public good, from which society as a whole may benefit. Yet the tensions and conflicts that can result from the juxtaposition of poverty and affluence obscure the extent of this common interest. The second dimension is an understanding of the character and costs of poverty that generates a positive response from governments and the non-poor within individual poor countries because it is couched in terms and idioms that resonate positively with national and local cultures. In most developing countries, the diagnosis and analysis of poverty tend to be undertaken externally, by international aid and development agencies. Given these foreign origins, it is no surprise that understandings of poverty frequently fail to resonate locally. This is particularly true because despite progress in understanding the multi-faceted nature of poverty, most of the “facts” produced describe and measure poverty as purely a material and monetary phenomenon. The use of the dollar-a-day method of measuring poverty would in most developing countries present poverty as an unfeasible large challenge for any government to tackle, leaving it with little option but faith in the poverty-reducing effects of economic growth. By contrast, the non-material conceptions of poverty - such as deprivation, lack of dignity, insecurity, vulnerability, powerlessness etc. - contain more potential for framing poverty in terms that separate it out into manageable sets of more specific problems, and thus generating political commitment to poverty reduction and to improving the economic facet of poverty. This is not an argument against statistics, which can be extremely persuasive when used in conjunction with locally resonant understandings of poverty. This can help the intensification of government and philanthropic efforts and lead to stronger pro-poor policies. Understandings of the world are neither fixed nor simple reflections of the economic self-interests. This is especially true in relation to poverty, where so much stereotyping takes place. Efforts to change perceptions of the character and causes of poverty in a sympathetic direction can contribute significantly to changing public policy. Objective This initiative aims to develop national commitment to poverty reduction by stimulating in-country debates about poverty reduction, and informing those debates with information on the general societal costs of poverty. It is anticipated that the processes of collecting and disseminating that information should help generate concepts of poverty and poverty reduction that are more attuned to local culture and history than are those stemming currently from international organizations and debates.159 EX/INF.6 - page 10 Activities There is an important opportunity here, but it could be implemented badly and ineffectively. In particular, the objective is so diffuse that it is not easy effectively to monitor the impact of any activities. The core of the programme would be a set of activities intended (a) to investigate and reveal the costs of poverty to society more broadly, and (b) to publicize this information in locally sensitive ways, principally within individual poor countries, with the aim of changing the terms of public debate over poverty. This programme would comprise three main sets of related activities: 1. A series of competitions and prizes, organized at national and regional levels, for (a) the best published research and (b) the best journalistic or other dissemination activities dealing with the costs of poverty. The research awards might be categorized between, for example, basically quantitative/economics research and other approaches to social science. Special attention should be paid to (a) explorations of the treatment of poverty within local cultures, religions and traditions; and (b) dissemination in national languages. 2. A set of research funds, awarded on an open and competitive basis, at national and regional levels, to support promising research proposals into the costs of poverty. Again, the distinction between quantitative/economics research and other approaches to social science might be useful. While every effort should be made to ensure that financial support is used dominantly to support research by nationals of poor countries, comparative research across countries should also be encouraged. 3. Disseminating the results of the two previous activities and building global debate around them. Verifying performance It is relatively easy to design a programme for monitoring the inputs and outputs of this initiative. Quantitative output monitoring - e.g. the number of research and dissemination outputs, and the speed with which they are produced - is essential but not in itself indicative of impact (or outcomes). Qualitative output indicators would provide better guidance on likely or potential impact. These would include: independent assessments of (a) the intellectual quality of completed research outputs and (b) the quality and appropriateness for different audiences of material produced for dissemination. The impact indicators are the extent to which (a) there is active public and political debate about the societal costs of poverty and (b) this debate is conducted with reference to local idioms, concerns and concepts. Concrete assessment of achievement of these diffuse goals would necessarily be subjective, and competence in assessment would need to be developed. The task is however not inherently more difficult than many routine performance assessments. B. Poverty, exclusion and ethnicity Theme UNESCO has put considerable effort into recognizing difference and the effects of diversity on global political, economic and social conditions. UNESCO’s focal point has been intercultural dialogue. Its efforts stem from a view that respect for cultural pluralism is vital in a world becoming more interdependent through globalization. At present, UNESCO’s159 EX/INF.6 - page 11 activities centre around the view of the World Commission on Culture and Development that culture should be brought “in from the margins” to the heart of policy-making for sustainable development. However, despite this clear recognition of the importance of diversity, more needs to be done to protect vulnerable groups, in the form of national policies or local initiatives to recognize and dismantle socioculturally constructed inequalities. Poverty is not explained simply by economics; it also has social and cultural determinants. Behind the indices of poverty and inequality lie groups of socially excluded and politically disempowered people whose vulnerability arises from their membership of particular - often artificially constructed - social or cultural categories (“difference” defined by race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation and culture). It has been argued that inequality persists, even in wealthy societies, because of “categorical exclusion” - members of certain groups setting up mechanisms for exploiting or excluding non-members (apartheid South Africa provides a case in point). This is evident in the over-representation of socially excluded groups in the populations that suffer the worst health, education and welfare statistics. It is vital for anti-poverty strategies to address not only the low incomes that are symptomatic of exclusion and poverty, but also the complex webs of unequal social relations that are its fundamental cause. Establishing a new branch of intercultural dialogue that recognizes and takes actions to counteract the sociocultural determinants of poverty is a vital component in the struggle to include the excluded. One group that is particularly vulnerable to both income poverty and social exclusion are indigenous peoples, who are often marginalized and discriminated against in various spheres. Though difficult to define, indigenous people have been described as: social groups with a social and cultural identity distinct from the dominant society that makes them vulnerable to being disadvantaged in the development process ... Indigenous people are commonly among the poorest segments of a population. They engage in economic activities that range from shifting agriculture in or near forests to wage labour or even small-scale market-oriented activities. Indigenous peoples can be identified in particular geographical areas by the presence in varying degrees of the following characteristics: • a close attachment to ancestral territories and to the natural resources in these areas; • self-identification and identification by others as members of a distinct cultural group; • an indigenous language, often different from the national language; • presence of customary social and political institutions; and • primarily subsistence-oriented production. In 1990 there were an estimated 59 million indigenous people in developing countries, 1 who were identified by IFAD as a “functionally vulnerable group”. These people include for example the “bushmen” or San in Botswana, tribals in India, the Bedouin nomadic pastoralists in North Africa and the Near East, and Amerindians in several Latin American countries. Membership of minority ethnic population groups is a robust proxy for poverty: 62% of tribals 1 This figure is even higher if it includes the indigent population of developed countries.159 EX/INF.6 - page 12 in India live below the poverty line compared with 42% of the rural population overall. However, the reasons for this association with poverty are not well understood (though linguistic barriers and incompatibility of “traditional” lifestyles with “modern” societies are two of many factors), and the linkages between poverty and social exclusion are only beginning to be conceptualized. More understanding of the sociocultural determinants of poverty and social exclusion is needed, with specific reference to indigenous peoples. The challenge for poverty interventions targeted at indigenous people is “how to improve their living conditions without destroying cultural heritage and identity”. These two challenges - improving the understanding of poverty determinants among socially excluded peoples, and supporting the design of culturally sensitive interventions to reduce their poverty - could be taken forward by UNESCO. Objective The ultimate objective of this initiative is to encourage greater policy attention and focused action around the special concerns of groups whose poverty is caused or reinforced by social exclusion. Activities UNESCO has several possible roles in regard to the poverty of socioculturally excluded groups: 1. At the global level, UNESCO can provide a forum for better understanding of the links between poverty and social exclusion, by commissioning research into the sociocultural determinants of poverty from specific countries or regions. 2. At national level, UNESCO can work with government and development organizations to organize strategies for identifying and reaching excluded groups with appropriate interventions and policies. 3. At the subnational level, UNESCO can expand its activities in community media and communications to build awareness about the local realities of poverty and exclusion. In particular, UNESCO can contribute to the debate by establishing prizes that encourage greater community and national dialogue on minority and indigenous rights and issues. Verifying performance The test for UNESCO’s achievement in this area by 2005 is whether the particular concerns of socially excluded groups have been recognized and are receiving appropriate attention from policy-makers. The means of verification should be a national report on measures taken during the first five years of the programme to identify and respond to the concerns of indigenous people, and other excluded and poor categories, in the country concerned. C. Democratic governance Theme Campaigns for greater transparency in the public domain in developing countries have often been “top-down”, driven by relatively articulate and wealthy groups, or, because this is a159 EX/INF.6 - page 13 legitimate concern of rich country governments, focused on the corrupt activities of international investors and transnational firms. Transparency and accountability in government are not seen as the priority concerns of poor people, who are understood to have more pressing needs. The grassroots movements to improve government accountability which are active in India are unusual. However, their existence and limited successes illustrate that: • Information about government procedures and activities are of direct relevance to the livelihoods of the poor. • The poor can organize themselves around information rights to campaign effectively for better transparency and accountability, starting at local levels. • Local-level audit is a powerful means of improving the accountability of government officials to the very poor. • Campaigns for the right to information can have wider consequences for the empowerment of the poor, as they strengthen democratic notions that government officials and elected representatives are public servants, with enforceable responsibilities to the poor. This may be particularly important for poor women, who tend to have even less experience and confidence in interactions with public officials than poor men. Local level transparency and accountability matter for the poor for three main reasons: • They often face great problems, harassment and costs when they attempt to engage in routine transactions with government agencies, e.g. attempting to obtain birth certificates. Information about entitlements and the formal procedures to be followed can be very valuable to them. • The situation is similar in relation to entitlements and eligibility for public welfare and anti-poverty programmes. Reliable information can greatly strengthen their bargaining position, individually and collectively. • The effectiveness of the local expenditures that governments make on education, health, roads and other services is an important determinant of the degree of poverty. The poor are often vitally interested in these subjects. But money is often misspent and misused. The poor have a strong interest in obtaining the information necessary to monitor government expenditures locally. It is often very difficult for poor people to engage in local campaigns for accountability and transparency. They may lay themselves open to retaliation, and local alliances easily fall apart. Organizations in the right to information movement in India, like the Rajasthani Association for the Empowerment of Workers and Farmers (MKSS), have achieved a great deal. Experimenting with methods for compiling, sharing and verifying expenditure data at very local levels, most notably through public hearings about expenditure on development schemes, the MKSS has developed a radical interpretation of the idea that citizens have a right to (a) know how they are governed and (b) participate in the process of auditing their representatives. The fact that these organizations face many problems also illustrates how much more effective and widespread they could be if given support and encouragement nationally and internationally.159 EX/INF.6 - page 14 It is in providing this support that UNESCO has a role, partly through gathering together and spreading the lessons of successful cases. This is fully consistent with UNESCO’s commitment to the “free flow of ideas by word and image … and the need for information and communication within and between nations”. Objective To increase the capacity of poor people to obtain a more effective service from state agencies at the local level by realizing their right to information in relation to government. Activities The role would be to help create an enabling environment, in which grassroots movements, NGOs and government agencies feel encouraged, emboldened and empowered to act. It should centre on publicizing information about local transparency initiatives, and supporting such initiatives from above, through encouraging national-level improvements to existing policies and practices, and from below, by developing rights education programmes: 1. Hosting dialogue at the international level in order to gather knowledge about statutory policies and actual practice with respect to rights to information, and to advocate strengthening of rights where they are weak. 2. Supporting national and cross-national research, dissemination and publicizing information about: • Local grassroots initiatives to improve accountability, specifically investigating their effectiveness at tackling corruption, and impacts on the operation of anti- poverty programmes. • Monitoring and audit procedures and practices used by local initiatives. Working guidelines can be developed and disseminated for the use of other institutions willing to try to improve accountability to the poor. • The adoption, by governments, NGOs and the private sector, of procedures that give poor people better service by providing better information about procedures and entitlements. In each of these cases, the competitive awarding of (a) research funds and (b) prizes for achievement could be valuable instruments. 3. Giving practical support to movements for improved accountability to the poor through: • The development of civil education outreach programmes or travelling information sites that can be adapted locally to give the poor access to information about their entitlements and rights to information about government performance. • Community media and NGOs already involved in governance projects with, e.g. UNDP, which can disseminate relevant information to local communities.159 EX/INF.6 - page 15 • Funding and/or promoting practical innovations in low-cost or accessible information technology which make it possible for poor people to make use of the right to information (e.g. arrangements for sharing communications technologies, copying and transmitting documents). Verifying performance UNESCO should develop a database of statutory rights and practical procedures with respect to official information access so that after five or six years it can: • List countries in which improvements in statutory rights to information have been made. • List details of improved practical procedures which enable the poor to gain access to information in practice (e.g. changes from non-specific commitments to provide information, to enforceable rights to certified photocopies of official information). In five years’ time the Organization should also be able to demonstrate that it has had an impact on: • Public debates about corruption, transparency and accountability, by having publicized best practices and progress in accountability to the poor through awards. It should keep track of coverage of these in the media. • Poor people’s own efforts to improve accountability through the development and implementation of education programmes. • Making information practically accessible to the poor through innovations in low- cost information technology, or in arrangements for sharing these. D. Operationalizing rights-based approaches Theme Identifying and affirming human rights, from a poverty perspective, is important for empowering people living in poverty. Several of the initiatives discussed above touch on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of poor and socially excluded groups. During the 1990s the “rights-based approach” to development emerged as a mechanism for upgrading basic needs to the status of universal rights. In terms of this approach, rights are a tool for achieving poverty reduction. A rights-based approach to development places people at the centre of policy formulation, and it makes duty-bearers - the state, and the international community - accountable for meeting the needs and rights of claim-holders (especially the poor). It is no longer possible for bureaucrats and politicians to assert that meeting the basic needs of their citizens is “unaffordable”, for instance. The emergence of rights in the international development discourse therefore presents significant opportunities for the world’s poor. A useful next step in the achievement of a rights-based approach - and a potential facilitating role for UNESCO - is to lead a global dialogue about why these rights are not upheld in practice.159 EX/INF.6 - page 16 Since the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), these rights have been elaborated at several international conferences and global summits. Economic, social and cultural rights are especially important, since they impact most directly on poverty. The Limburg Principles (1987) and Maastricht Guidelines (1997) reaffirmed the status of economic, social and cultural rights in international law. In addition the United Nations International Conference on Human Rights and Democracy (1993) confirmed the right to development as a human right. Yet in practice, a significant obstacle to the rights-based approach relates to enforceability. The international community appears to lack the political will, or the adequate legal mechanisms either to enforce rights (especially economic, social and cultural rights) or to support their realisation. Objective The general objective of this initiative is to operationalize the economic, social and cultural rights, and civil and political rights that have been agreed in international fora, as they relate to possibilities for poverty reduction. The aims for UNESCO are to take a lead on operationalizing the rights-based approach at the international level, and to assist the poor in realizing their rights. Activities A number of roles are possible for UNESCO in the area of rights and poverty, including: • At the global level, taking the debate on rights-based approaches forward by addressing the challenges of enforceability. • Giving legal, moral and political weight to the 1995 Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development (building on UNESCO’s contribution to the United Nations document “Implementing the 20/20 Initiative: Achieving universal access to basic social services” (1998)). • At the national level, monitoring the achievement of rights in Member States and seeking ways for the international community to uphold these rights. • At the local level, providing appropriate assistance in support of the claims of the poor to achieve their rights - especially, but not only, economic, social and cultural rights. • At the national level, stimulating debate on the relation between poverty reduction and the appropriation and effective exercise of civil and political rights. Verifying performance 1. Within five years, visible progress should have been achieved in terms of understanding why economic, social and cultural rights are not prioritized in international discourses around human rights and poverty. This might take the form of published proceedings from national and international processes of consultation and consciousness-raising. 2. National reports in five years’ time on how the economic, social and cultural rights of the poor and excluded in each country have been addressed.159 EX/INF.6 - page 17 The test for UNESCO’s achievement in this area by 2005 is whether the particular concerns of socially excluded groups have been recognized and are receiving appropriate attention from policy-makers. The means of verification should be a report on measures taken during the first five years of the programme to identify and respond to the concerns of indigenous people, and other excluded and poor categories, in the country concerned. E. Science and technology for rural development Themes Many poor people in developing countries live in rural areas - over 60% of people in most and as many as 90% in some countries. Rural inhabitants face greater levels of poverty than those in urban areas - rural poverty is a major reason for the situation and attendant problems of increasing urban drift. To address the problems of rural poverty and urban drift there is an urgent need for rural development policy, planning and activity to promote income generation and employment creation in rural areas. Rural development includes issues and activities relating to economic, social and human development in rural areas, and the linkages between rural and urban areas upon which rural development depends. In the past, rural development has been closely associated in many people’s minds with agriculture and smallholder farming. While this association is acknowledged understandable, the importance of non-agricultural aspects of rural development have often been overlooked, however, and should be an urgent focus of attention. Some examples exist. In China, the SPARK programme has helped create one hundred million non-agricultural rural jobs, and experiments in India by the Indian Institute of Science have resulted in the creation of sustainable industrial jobs in the countryside with exceedingly low investment and reasonable productivity. Important issues to address in rural development and the reduction of poverty are the promotion of knowledge, skills and human resource development for income generation and employment creation. Knowledge, in the form of technology and associated skills, is the main engine of development and, provided there is an equitable distribution of resources, the main means to promote rural development and address problems of rural poverty and urban drift. Most importantly, the application and development of technology and associated skills does not only promote income generation and employment to promote rural development and poverty alleviation, but is part of a wider process that enables poor people to develop their own human resources to meet their basic needs and stimulate economic development. There are also areas and issues of emerging interest that relate to science, technology and poverty alleviation. These include globalization (and such issues as those relating to the use of the Internet), sustainable development and associated scientific, environmental and ethical issues (such as the possible development and use of genetically modified (GM) foods - as with the “Green Revolution”, with the caveat that the principle of precaution should be applied to the GM food issues until informed study, debate and discussion provide clearer evidence).159 EX/INF.6 - page 18 Objectives To help Member States to design training policies that convey technical and scientific competence to rural populations so as to help them participate in efficient improvements to their environment and practices, which would have a cumulative impact on structural poverty reduction. In engineering and technology, in particular, the various branches of engineering (mechanical, civil, chemical, electrical, hydraulic) have significant connections in all areas. This includes the innovation and diffusion of technology, disaster mitigation and response, technology policy, planning and management, small industry and business development, energy supply and efficiency, transportation, sustainable development, housing, water supply and sanitation. The water sciences and hydrology have obvious connection to water supply and sanitation. The environmental and ecological sciences connect to the overall field of sustainable development. While the basic sciences (including mathematics, physics, chemistry and life sciences) have less direct connection to poverty reduction, there is a particularly crucial connection to the underpinning importance of science education. The earth sciences also have related interest in disaster mitigation and reduction. Activities Although specific activities and performance measure need to be developed, areas in which activities that could be enhanced include the innovation and diffusion of technology, promotion of microfinance, disaster mitigation and response, technology policy, planning and management, small industry and business development, energy supply and efficiency, transportation, sustainable development, housing, water supply and sanitation. F. Conclusion The above five elements illustrate for discussion how the Organization could frame a programme of poverty reduction around concepts aimed at attaining the overall purpose of building national ownership of the anti-poverty agenda. These areas are examples of how the Organization can help to fulfil its role as the agency within the United Nations system designed to foster intellectual cooperation. The decision contained in document 159 EX/9 is the obvious basis for pursuing in-house discussion of the details for a comprehensive strategy that fits with the Organization’s mandate; with the strengths and weaknesses of the other agencies in the system; and with the need to be a credible partner for assisting Member States in designing effective poverty-reduction strategies.