{"id":4903,"date":"2014-09-27T09:36:16","date_gmt":"2014-09-27T07:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=4903"},"modified":"2014-09-27T09:36:16","modified_gmt":"2014-09-27T07:36:16","slug":"winners-and-losers-how-budgeting-for-human-rights-can-help-the-poor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2014\/09\/winners-and-losers-how-budgeting-for-human-rights-can-help-the-poor\/","title":{"rendered":"Winners and losers: how budgeting for human rights can help the poor"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Source: Open Democracy<\/a><\/div>\n
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HELENA HOFBAUER<\/a><\/span>\u00a025 September 2014<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Recent research reveals the impact that international covenants could have on government taxation and expenditures. Based on civil society organization (CSO) campaigns around the world, human rights law\u2014coupled with budget analysis\u2014can be a powerful tool to hold governments to account for how their policies affect the poor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Government budgets are political. Who wins and who loses from how a government taxes and spends is inextricably linked to the political calculus that is the politician\u2019s stock-and-trade. As a result, groups far removed from power, like the poor, are at a double disadvantage\u2014despite greater need they are at greater risk of being cut out of their fair share of public resources.<\/p>\n

But what is often overlooked is that, in\u00a0160 signatory countries<\/a>, international law mandates that governments must not only provide services equitably but also must invest resources in addressing inequalities arising from past discrimination.\u00a0Economic and social rights<\/a>\u00a0can indeed help the poor\u2014despitearguments to the contrary<\/a>\u2014and using budget-based evidence can improve and help enforce these laws.<\/p>\n

Born in the cold-war era, the\u00a0International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)<\/a>\u00a0was often characterized as the communist counterpart to the West\u2019s Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Whereas civil and political rights were largely understood as setting\u00a0limits to what governments can do<\/a>\u2014as in not locking up critical journalists, or practicing torture\u2014the ICESCR explicitly compels governments to act. It enshrines the right to food, education, jobs and healthcare regardless of \u201crace, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today it is well recognized that governments must refrain from certain actions and also take proactive steps in order to realize both sets of rights. And the ICESCR spells out the principles for government action: using the \u201cmaximum of available resources\u201d to \u201crealize progressively\u201d and \u201cwithout discrimination\u201d the rights enshrined in the covenant. The covenant, therefore, has important implications for how governments raise revenues and spend resources.<\/p>\n

For this reason, the\u00a0International Budget Partnership<\/a>\u00a0(IBP), together with partners from around the world, has published a handbook on\u00a0what the covenant means for government budgets<\/a>. We found that the budget is a powerful and under-utilized tool to hold governments to account for their human rights obligations.<\/p>\n

Righting wrongs<\/h2>\n

The obligation of\u00a0non-discrimination<\/a>\u00a0is at the heart of the covenant. In budgetary terms, this means raising revenue and delivering services in ways that account for the disadvantages groups might face within society. Put another way, resources need to be invested in levelling the playing field.<\/p>\n

For example, the Dalits in India have long faced systematic discrimination. Today the majority live in poverty and over half are illiterate. The\u00a0National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights<\/a>\u00a0used budget analysis to reveal that, despite government rhetoric,\u00a0Dalits were being systematically short changed in government spending<\/a>. The ICESCR is the perfect instrument to anchor such claims in international law.<\/p>\n

Right taxing and spending<\/h2>\n

The covenant also obliges governments to raise and invest the \u201cmaximum of its available resources<\/a>\u201d to secure people\u2019s rights. Notably, governments must not merely allocate money toward securing rights but must justify their spending decisions in terms of their impact.<\/p>\n

When the\u00a0Tanzanian advocacy group Sikika<\/a>\u00a0discovered that a large chunk of the\u00a0health budget was being spent on international travel, expensive hotels and allowances for civil servants<\/a>, they questioned the effectiveness of such items. Were these expenses the best way to ensure equal access to healthcare for all? Perhaps. But under the covenant such expenditures would require clear justification.<\/p>\n

Moving in the right direction<\/h2>\n

The covenant acknowledges that the realization of all economic, social and cultural rights is not immediately achievable in all countries. However, it commits signatory governments to the \u201cprogressive realization<\/a>\u201d of these rights. Reforms that limit a government\u2019s ability to deliver them may be in breach of this obligation.<\/p>\n

In 2008 the government of Brazil proposed a tax reform that would have slashed resources earmarked for expenditures critical to the poor. The\u00a0Instituto de Estudos Socioecon\u00f4micos<\/a>\u00a0conducted\u00a0analysis showing how the cuts would threaten the delivery of basic services<\/a>. The reforms were ultimately found to be unconstitutional and scrapped. But even if such policy was not found to violate national law, the covenant could have been used to invoke the government\u2019s obligation of progressive realization. Such cuts would have invariably diminished access to services and presumably reduced the enjoyment of basic rights.<\/p>\n

Access to the right information<\/h2>\n

The success of the campaigns cited above hinged on having the right information at the right time. Sikika would not have been able to call out the government for its health spending had the group not had access to the health budget. While there is currently no binding international law to guarantee budget transparency, the\u00a0UN has adopted a resolution<\/a>\u00a0and various international standards setting bodies have issued\u00a0good practice guidelines<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To monitor progress toward greater budget transparency and participation, IBP works with local independent researchers around the world to produce the biennial\u00a0Open Budget Survey<\/a>. More recently, we have launched the\u00a0Open Budget Survey (OBS) Tracker<\/a>\u00a0in 30 countries, providing monthly updates of which budget documents governments are making public. The hope driving both efforts is that regular, comparative information on how open their government is being with budget information will assist civil society to push for greater transparency.<\/p>\n

Old dog, new tricks<\/h2>\n

What it all comes down to is that governments must be accountable for how their decisions affect the poor and marginalized. Civil society is integral to achieving this. Understanding how governments are managing public money is crucial for sorting reality from rhetoric. For this reason, governments\u2019 budgets should be of interest to everyone\u2014and efforts to open up new spaces for participation and define new ways to make information available and accessible to the people must increase.<\/p>\n

As we\u2019ve seen, many of the social injustices and ineffectual government decisions that drive local civil society campaigns are also of concern under international law. But we are just beginning to explore the potential of this long-established covenant. What is clear, though, is that budget analysis coupled with the ICESCR could be a powerful new tool for mitigating how much the powerful win and the marginalized lose amid the political realities of public finance. The possibility of holding governments to account, pushing them to be more transparent and demanding budgets that align with the commitments that they made, is consistent with the governments\u2019 own rules. But it is up to us to hold them to their word.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recent research reveals the impact that international covenants could have on government taxation and expenditures. Based on civil society organization (CSO) campaigns around the world, human rights law\u2014coupled with budget analysis\u2014can be a powerful tool to hold governments to account for how their policies affect the poor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,85,50,55,88,10],"tags":[536],"class_list":["post-4903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editor-selection","category-human-rights","category-political-civil-economic-social-and-cultural-rights","category-poverty","category-slider","category-world","tag-economic-rights","country-world","Documents-statements-multimedia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4908,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4903\/revisions\/4908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}