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Using Budgeting as a Tool to Advance Human Rights


Workshop, Shimla, India, 28th – 30th May


 “Budget was at the periphery of the human rights movement only a few years ago.
A series of cases illustrate a shift such that now I as a human rights activist, who was quite sceptical of it, realise that it is at the centre of the discourse of human rights enforcement” Colin Gonsalves (Human Rights Law Network, India)

From 28-30 May, an enriching workshop with 30 Indian and international human rights and budget practitioners was held in Shimla, India. This was organised by a coalition of NGOs, led by the Human Rights Law Network and Centre for Budget Governance Accountability, and initiated in collaboration with the APRODEV Rights and Development Group  The workshop aimed to share innovative applications of budgeting and costing methodologies as tools to press for the realisation of human rights as well as to explore potential for further innovation. It ultimately sought to create space to deliberate how to strengthen budgeting and human rights work at the different levels, and determine the relevance of and need for costing as a tool in the longer term political human rights struggle. It was an enriching dialogue which challenged participants to move outside their comfort zone and take up the various struggles in this field: how to impact the macro level power issues? How to expand each others activism? How to strengthen the impact of our work for human rights on the ground? Groups made a series of proposals which will be developed for follow-up programmes.

Context


During the various sessions it became clear that the 10 years experiences of Indian organisations on budget-work is path-breaking: budge t work has shown to be a useful instrument and is widely used in diverse ways. The work shifted from using budget as a tool for accountable governance to a movement to press for just governance. A central question is how do we further and promote the agenda of just governance and how to include Human Rights within this? It is here that development organisations can have a role and bring both fields together.
 
Nevertheless in the context of the new liberal policies and changing role of the state, one should also look into macro-economic policies. The need to elaborate a strategic vision and combine actions at the macro and micro level was stressed throughout the workshop.
The conduct of International Financial Institutions and international donors should be monitored as new liberal policies and politics are constantly questioning the whole human rights framework. Fundamental questions must be addressed; Does the State play role of financier and provider or just financier? Should the state be the guarantor for services? New challenges around budgets are also coming up – they no longer always take the treasury route – but rather the society or private institution route and it becomes difficult to hold the Government accountable on impact and utilisation of allocations. The lack of adequate policies to reach marginalised and most vulnerable groups or to deal with deep rooted social and cultural issues are crucial in the fulfilment of Human rights.

Main findings and challenges combining Human Rights and Budgets


1) Budgeting is a critical tool


Budgeting is a critical tool of the human rights discourse and movement, but it is one tool, not an end in itself. It is the inter-linkage between laws, policies, budgets, programs and governance which fulfil the steps that need to be taken to realise Human Rights.
On the other side Human Rights can also add great value to budgeting by setting standards and priorities. HR bring an anchor of what it is we should be focusing on and why it is important. The bridge between HRs and budget people must be strengthened and we must work to broaden each others’ activism. The two fields still don’t really intersect.

2) Budgeting is only a small element of the larger political struggle


Budgeting is only a small element for use at very specific moments in a wider, longer-term complex and dynamic process of making States and Government accountable for respecting, protecting and fulfilling human rights. Budget work is done in many different ways. One method is to claim allocation for specific issues, policies or marginalised groups. Another method is to ‘increase utilisation’ of resources allocated and explore more innovative ways of finding the money within the budget. Information on allocations or tracking of spending on the local level can support empowerment of local grassroots groups claiming their rights. In the end it is a political struggle. Costing can be part of the process at different stages, underlining arguments of, for example, why allocations must be increased.

                     

3) Rights should be translated into entitlements


Rights should be translated into entitlements and litigation has been part of the strategy of fulfilment, or bringing violations and non-fulfilment of ESC rights cases to court. Most of the actual cases are based on national law and the Constitution; the use of budget and costing here can be very effective. We have to develop our strategy for getting ESC rights programmes in the law and get them implemented. But where do we focus: Is it going rights-based budgets as politics or law? Here we have to develop our  approach on budgeting human rights; combining policies and laws, better use of available funding; costing violations; gaps in policies and budgets. Many participants also highlighted “excessive segmentation” of work as a critical issue for redress throughout;  “This is rights, this is service delivery etc, we need to talk to each other across these boundaries we have set for each other.”
 
A second possible track discussed was to investigate whether the budget bill can be treated as legislation. The consequences and potential of this would be enormous. All law is tested against the Constitution, so there is huge possibility for interfering with budgets: challenges could be made, for example, based on the right to life, that the protection of life is not adequately provided for in the budgets. The financial memorandum, that must now accompany every new legislative bill in India, is also law and raises further possibilities of interfering with budgets. In terms of human rights focus, the need not to lose sight of civil and political rights was also repeated during the workshop.

4) The core content of Human Rights


The core content of Human Rights or specific aspects could be translated into concrete numbers: “What is not counted doesn’t count – what can’t be costed doesn’t cost– “.To get to this stage, we need to further develop specificity in rights however and develop common, consistent accepted standards for rights implementation to make a unified demand. International guidelines and laws are important but need finiteness, clarity and national contextualisation. There is a challenge to interface with international work in concrete ways without compromising local realities. What does it imply ‘Maximum available resources’ within the Indian context? In the case of Right to Health a model is developed to elaborate the concrete core content.

5) Costing methodologies


Costing methodologies have been used in several cased and stages, for example, in the Right to Food Campaign (http://www.righttofoodindia.org/index.html) . Nevertheless some say it is the government’s responsibility to translate human rights into adequate policies and budgets, Civil Society should just claim their rights, and track and monitor implementation. And if one starts with costing, one should be aware of developing and setting realistic, adequate benchmarks. Some expressed a fear that once civil society put a figure on rights implementation, they would be held to this by the Government and it would essentially become the cap. Stronger advocacy for what was termed “political costing” on the last day began to emerge however: “ We must understand and know what we are fighting for. We should do costing  if it will strengthen our demands. It strengthens and sharpens our political arguments.”  On the other hand, only if the necessary environment is there will it help – where there is the opportunity to push a certain issue – then it is worthwhile to cost. It is just another tool.

6) Universality versus proportionality


Universality versus proportionality was a persistent issue, focused on the fragmented approach of India at the moment, which some participants were against. Should they work towards redistribution based on universality or proportionality - focus on most deprived? In the case of Dalit budgeting the work developed from general budget critiques of Tamil Nadu government fiscal policy, comparing it with manifestos and demands to a focus of one section of the most significant disadvantaged section.
It should not be a debate of universality versus equity but how do you universalise with equity? We must do this by challenging standards and what is taken to be an acceptable norm and come to social equity. By that method one should make an alternative universal framework for free education, health care subsidised food, by this universal framework everyone goes to schools, healthcare systems etc..

7) More Impact


Finally participants felt a need to examine why there ultimately is relatively little impact from enormous, diverse and comprehensive budget work. Some of the participants stressed the need to come out of our comfort zones and as budget and human rights organisations look for other entry points and be more strategic in our work for more impact on the different levels. Again the need to broaden each other’s activism was a common thread.

What next??


The Indian organisations committed themselves to take up some immediate follow-up:


See a number of the papers prepared by participating individuals / organisations
Budgeting for the Right to Healthcare in India, Ravi Duggal
Social Security: A Woman's Human Right, Priiti Darooka, PWESCR

The full report from the workshop will be coming soon!