DevISSues volume 5, number 3, December 2003

RenĂŠe Jones-Bos on Human Rights and Development

DevISSues DevelopmentISSues

Volume5/Number3/December2003

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News from the Institute Board Most ISS alumni who read DevISSues know the Institute from the 1980s or 90s, which were years of great continuity in our teaching activities in The Hague. An alumnus who studied at ISS in the mid 1980s and revisited in the mid 1990s would have found almost everything familiar, except for the new, larger premises into which we moved in 1993. There was a major revamp of the Masters Programme in 1998: many courses are now delivered on an Institute-wide basis and we have an Institute-wide Board of Examiners. But the lines of specialisation within the programme have stayed recognisably the same, though with much evolution at the more detailed level. Now, however, the pace of change has greatly increased.

The basis of stability earlier was that, like sister institutes such as ITC and IHE, ISS received a guaranteed number of student fellowships from the Dutch government each year, financed indirectly from the development cooperation budget. These covered 55-65% of our Masters and PhD students and an even higher proportion of participants in our Diploma programmes. They were divided equally between the various Masters specialisations and Diplomas. The system of guaranteed fellowships, known as NFP, ended this year. From now on, under the ‘New NFP’ system, we will compete with many other providers for a share of a nationwide pool of fellowships for international students from a shortened list of eligible countries. Allocation of fellowships to a course will be in proportion to the number of applicants accepted by both ISS and the Netherlands Embassy in the applicant’s country.

Overall, we expect to substantially shift towards other fellowship sponsors and to self-funded students.

ISS has increased its marketing and recruitment activity, including by creating new posts and improving our website.

We were delighted to have a 30% rise in applications (to 1350) and an almost 20% rise in intake (to 188, the highest ever) for the 2003-4 Masters Programme. The number of non-NFP students has risen by almost 50%, and they are now in a

clear majority. This has not meant a big change in the geographical balance of students, who continue to come from all over the world, and are now perhaps even more broadly spread than before.

The Masters Programme is evolving in content and methods.

A new specialisation will begin in 2004, in International Political Economy and Development, and others are being considered. Students have a wide range of choice of introductory, research and other courses, and can also now take a ‘Minor’, a subsidiary specialisation, in various areas such as Human Rights or Environment. We have created an Academic Skills unit, and are making increasing use of our computer network to share course materials and discussions.

We have installed the First Class ‘integrated platform’ software system, used by the Open University in Britain.

The range of Diploma programmes on offer was completely renovated in 2002: ten considerably shorter diplomas, more sharply focused but still academically intensive, including in new areas such as Children & Youth, Governance & Democratisation, and Social Policy. Next year we will add Feminist Development Economics. Other possibilities are under discussion, often linked to projects abroad, and some have begun, such as a new short course on reproductive health.

An alumnus or alumna from the 1980s or 90s who revisits us now will find a rather rapidly changing ISS. Des Gasper, ISS Dean Growth in MA studentnumbers MA Applications Admissions Registrations

00/01 738 453 148

01/02 978 616 156

02/03 1039 639 159

The views expressed in DevISSues are those of the original authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute.

The Institute of Social Studies ISS is an institute for advanced international education and research offering Diploma, Masters and PhD programmes. The Institute generates, accumulates and transfers knowledge and know-how on human aspects of economic and social change, with a focus on development and transition.

ISS is a leading centre in this field.

Development ISSues is also available on the ISS website at www.iss.nl

CONTENTS

Page

4 / What Went Wrong in Africa?

Roel van der Veen

Page

6 / ISS Dies Natalis

Page

8 / Alumni News

Page 10 / Human Rights and Development RenĂŠe Jones-Bos Page 12 / European Investors and Cuba Liduine Zumpolle Page 14 / Economic Growth in Uruguay and Latin America Sebastien Torres Ledezma Page 16 / Project News Page 19 / Conferences: Water Privatisation Page 20 / Refresher Course Uganda Page 21 / The Hague Academic Coalition Interview with Hans Opschoor Page 23 / Teaching News

4 / R O E L VA N D E R V E E N

Roel van der Veen

What Went Wrong In Africa?

Africa is often portrayed in the media as a continent where daily life is determined by poverty, corruption and conflict. Although this is a far from balanced view, the majority of the world’s poor countries are nevertheless found in Africa. The Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation, Agnes van Ardenne, has made Africa the focal point of her revised development policy and will soon be initiating an on-line

theories and more recently remoulded by the antiglobalists – claim that the poverty of poor countries is caused (or at least maintained) by the rich countries.

‘The rich’ are seen to have ‘the poor’ in an iron grip. Reality has shown, however, that this is an exaggeration, to say the least. Some poor countries, especially in East and Southeast Asia, have developed very successfully. Clearly, the obstructing influence of the international system must not be overestimated.

discussion on the continent’s problems (see page 18). In this article historian Roel van der Veen offers a personal view of what went wrong in Africa. The editors would welcome responses from readers.

In the last 50 years, despite rapid population growth, a reasonable standard of living has come within reach of most people. The percentage of poor has fallen to around 20% of the still expanding global population. In recent decades, people everywhere, on all continents, have seen their living standards improve.

Except in Africa. The percentage of poor in Africa has risen, not fallen. The people of almost all African countries (or more specifically those of SubSaharan Africa) now earn on average less than at the time of Independence.

Bad governance, violence, corruption and AIDS complete this sombre picture.

How could things have gone so badly wrong in Africa? Other continents have sometimes faced enormous problems,

but only Africa has made almost no progress at all. The failure of development in Africa has come as a surprise to many people. Around 1960, when many countries gained Independence, there was a general feeling of euphoria, a new start for a continent that had freed itself from many years of colonial oppression and from the slave trade. At first sight, Africa didn’t seem to be in a worse position than the other non-Western continents of Asia and Latin America, which together used to be called the ‘Third World’.

The virtual disappearance of the Third World as a concept is an indication that general theories about rich and poor cannot explain the realities of the situation in any detail. These explanations - first in the form of the dependency

NON-FUNCTIONING STATES If Africa is the only continent to lag behind, then there must be something about Africa itself that is standing in the way of development. Since the 1980s, there has been a school of thought which lays the emphasis on the state. I agree with those who see the functioning - or rather, the non-functioning - of states in Africa as a core problem. These states were left behind by the colonial powers and had to survive in an African environment. Power came to rest in the hands of a small, Western-educated elite.

These people had close contacts with the departing colonial powers, but to keep their position in their own countries they had to forge new contacts with their own people. In Africa there is only one way to do that: by establishing a patron-client relationship with the population. The patron (who has power and resources to dispose of at will) builds up a network of contacts with the clients (who in return offer political support, or at least

R O E L VA N D E R V E E N / 5

do not make life difficult for the patron).

But what could those in power give their clients in the form of favours to keep them satisfied? They had no economic resources of their own. All they ‘owned’ was the state and everything that was a part of it. So they could hand out public jobs, a wonderful gift where poverty reigned and there was little work. So, after Independence, bureaucracies immediately began to expand. Furthermore, public money could be used to set up industries, which also provided many jobs. In the jargon of the Cold War, this was known as the ‘socialist’ road to development. In practice, however, there was no ‘road to development’; it was simply a premodern form of redistribution by the state. In addition, in Africa, power was often seen as all-embracing and unrestricted, not limited to a certain field of activity, such as politics or the economy.

First, politics would be dominated by a single party. The party then became synonymous with the state, and the one-party state swallowed up the economy. The ‘chief patron’ - the president - controlled everything. There was no distinction between the public and the private.

Despite forging these networks of patronage, the civil elite continued to be in a weak position. Almost everywhere, to consolidate their position, they had to work together with the military.

In exchange for their services, the military always received - or appropriated - a part of the state’s income. In some countries, civilians remained in power, with the support of the military, in others the military pushed the civilian government aside and set up a military dictatorship.

This meant not only that development no longer had priority, but also a new form of compact between leaders and people: ‘benign’ patronage was gradually replaced by ‘malignant’ repression.

STATUS QUO But no matter which method - patronage or repression - dominated, development was not achieved. The system was not focused on growth, which was necessary for higher production and consumption, but on preservation of the existing power structure, the status quo. Africa was still in essence a premodern society, which gave little prominence to the economic principles of making a profit.

Resources were not deployed in the name of progress, but to preserve domestic

stability. Africa’s competitive power therefore remained inadequate. But while African economy and society more or less stagnated, competitive power elsewhere in the world increased. Globalisation, with its emphasis on effectiveness and competition, became increasingly important. As the global economy grew rapidly, Africa’s share in it declined. The continent was marginalised and the incomes of its states fell.

With a rapidly expanding population, it became increasingly difficult for African leaders to find sufficient resources to preserve the patron-client relationship.

From the 1970s on, they were able to preserve stability by taking out international loans. The borrowed money was, for the most part, not invested profitably, but used to feed the networks of patronage. Repayment was therefore out of the question, which made the moneylenders, united in the IMF and the World Bank, increasingly critical. In the 1980s they were only prepared to extend new loans if the African states put their finances back in order. With incomes down, this meant reducing their expenditure. Because a relatively large share of African government spending goes on civil service salaries, the cutbacks could be achieved only by widespread redundancies in the public sector. Services like education and health were hit hard, with the result that support for government quickly crumbled.

In the 1990s, African leaders had little choice than to invest their increasingly scarce resources in groups who were most loyal to them. In most cases, this was their own ethnic group. Members of rival ethnic groups were often disadvantaged, which naturally led to dissatisfaction and tensions. Ethnic loyalties gained ground at the expense of nationalist sentiments, leading to further fragmentation of the central state. Mostly, all that was left was a hard core of leaders and their most faithful clients, who held each other in a stranglehold, neither being able to survive without the other. This core had to compete with other cores which emerged, usually on an ethnic basis. In countries with easy to exploit raw materials (such as diamonds), the tensions soon led to violence and conflict. The government no longer stood above the conflict, preserving law and order, but became increasingly one of the warring parties. This signified the

end of the state as an effective institution in society. The fate of these failed states can be seen in many parts of Africa, from Somalia to Congo and Liberia.

DEMOCRATISATION When the Cold War ended, the dissatisfaction of the people in African countries came to the surface. This dissatisfaction was expressed in a wave of democratisation. Many groups demanded a change of policy, new faces in the government and greater control over those in power.

Elections were held across the continent, some of which led to peaceful changes of government. The pressure came at a time when many authoritarian regimes in Africa were already feeling the pinch, due to the changed international situation.

Africa had lost its strategic importance.

For the international powers, it was no longer necessary for African leaders to stay in power. In this new situation, they had to try and save themselves.

In addition, the international community gave increasing support to democratisation in African states. A variety of measures were taken to improve the functioning of the state, such as strengthening governance capacity, combating corruption, promoting the rule of law and supporting civil society organisations.

All of these factors combined to generate a force - from both within African societies and from the international community for renewal of the state. This push towards rebuilding the state aimed to counteract the process of state disintegration. The outcome of the current struggle between state disintegration and state-building will determine the future of African countries and regions. For the moment, disintegration seems to have the upper hand, especially in West and Central Africa. For the rest of Africa continued stagnation would seem the best we can hope for. For Africa, the near future looks anything but optimistic.

Roel van der Veen is the author of a recent book entitled ‘Africa: from the Cold War to the 21st Century’, in which he seeks the causes of Africa’s current problems.

ISBN 90 6832 524 8 KIT Publishers, 2002

6 / 5 1 S T D I E S N ATA L I S I S S

Dies Natalis A world fit for children?

On 9 October, ISS celebrated its 51st Dies Natalis. Rector Hans Opschoor opened the proceedings by looking back over the past year since the Institute’s half-centenary celebrations and at the challenges ahead. The Dies Natalis address was given by Prof. Ben White, who addressed the issue of children and youth in development studies and policy. The formal part of the proceedings was followed by a reception in the aula of the Institute.

Professor Opschoor started the proceedings by paying tribute to former ISS colleague Dr Nyugen Ngoc Luu and Honorary Fellow Edward Said. Dr Luu, who died in May, was an ISS alumnus who later became a teacher and researcher at the Institute and was very active in the links between ISS and Vietnam.

Edward Said was awarded an Honorary Doctorate last year at the 50th Anniversary celebrations and came to the Institute in May to receive it and give a lecture.

He died in September after a long fight against leukaemia.

The Rector continued by reviewing the role of ISS in today’s knowledge society.

The Institute, he said, wishes to help establish a more equitable access to knowledge between industrial societies and those outside the OECD region.

Last year’s Anniversary programme led to a reconfirmation of the Institute’s mission, and that process of focusing

more on the core commitment continues.

Reviewing the year’s activities, the Rector focused on cooperative efforts with institutes and organisations around the world and in the Netherlands. Although not all of these efforts had been equally successful, the success rate was higher than expected. On that optimistic note, the Rector moved on to changes in the policy environment. The major change was the introduction throughout Dutch tertiary education of the Bachelors-Master system. ISS has been awarding Master degrees for a long time and is ready to participate in the new system.

Changes in development policy also present threats and challenges. Although the current Minister for Development Cooperation intends to reduce the number of countries and sectors receiving Dutch development support even further, she has also announced an interest in

setting up regional programmes in areas in which ISS is familiar, including the Great Lakes region and the Horn of Africa. The Institute hopes, too, to take advantage of the minister’s wish to work more closely with non-governmental entities.

The Rector concluded by reiterating the need for ISS to be less dependent on money flows from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was happy to report that, with a record number of students now in the Masters programmes, 55% were now at the Institute without a fellowship from the Ministry. A step in the right direction.

CHILDREN AS AGENTS OF CHANGE The title of Prof. Ben White’s address was taken from the outcome document of the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children in May 2002. Prof.

White began by saying that the international community rather easily makes far-reaching commitments when it comes to children, but just as easily fails to honour them. This, he emphasised, is a matter of deliberate political choice, a choice which means that ‘the lives of hundreds of millions of children and young people are seriously scarred or physically extinguished.’

Depending on the definitions used, children and young people make up between a third and a half of the world population. The welfare and rights of this large segment of humanity have been constituted as objects of international relations since the founding of the League of Nations in 1919. Since then, a succession of instruments have elaborated a basic global standard of what constitutes a proper childhood.

Although international organisations have a limited impact on children’s lives and work, they can potentially have a great indirect influence by setting the terms of the discourse. The danger of this ‘globalisation of childhood’ is that it may entail the imposition of ‘Western’ norms,

5 1 S T D I E S N ATA L I S I S S

quoted ‘renegade psychologist’ Judith Harris, who said: ‘A child’s goal is not to become a successful adult. A child’s goal is to become a successful child.’

Rethinking childhood means listening more systematically to what children themselves have to say. Looking at the areas of work, education, sexuality and abandonment, Prof. White concluded that children often have different perspectives than those of the dominant model: instead of being ‘rescued’ or ‘protected’, they may prefer support in gaining greater control over their own lives. making the lives of many poor children appear deviant, inferior or pathological.

In the 1990s, there was an escalation of international attention for the issue of children and young people, but the background trends of liberalisation and rolling back government spending did little to improve the lot of the world’s poor children. In many parts of the world school enrolment fell and the number of children in full-time employment rose.

SURVIVING CHILDHOOD Although there has arguably been progress, one in ten children worldwide (one in four in some countries) do not survive their childhood. The majority die from easily preventable or curable diseases, making them again victims of deliberate political choices. Of those who survive, many emerge from childhood physically or psychologically harmed. It is understandable, Prof. White said, that we feel outraged that the modern world continues to make victims of so many of its children. But such sentiments are not a helpful guide to action.

A focus on children’s vulnerability alone encourages the view that they are passive, helpless victims, obscuring their strengths, their own ideas on how to cope, and their rights to be active agents in their own development.

RETHINKING CHILDHOOD We need therefore to rethink our notions of childhood. This entails deconstruction of the dominant Western model, which essentially views children as ‘incomplete’ adults, and amounts to a refusal to study children in their own right. Prof. White

FROM NEEDS TO RIGHTS Prevailing notions of childhood must be understood as social and cultural constructions, not universal truths. Children are born into ‘webs of power relations’ and for them to gain greater control over their lives, we need concepts that help us to understand them as competent persons. Prof. White pointed to similarities with gender. ‘Generation,’ he said, ‘is to (biological) age what ‘gender’ is to (biological) sex.’ Exploring generational relations helps us to place children in the crosscutting hierarchies of gender, generation and social class.

A new approach requires a shift from needs-based to rights-based strategies.

The impetus and the legislation for this shift already exist in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a product of ‘cold war manoeuvring’ at a time when children’s rights were far from the top of the global agenda. But, as in so many other cases, although a large number of organisations have made pledges to base their work on the CRC, many do not go beyond the rhetoric.

It is important, Prof. White stressed, not to let these organisations off the hook.

Education, in particular, is crucial because it ‘operates as a multiplier’. But despite the fact that the right of children to education has been on the international agenda since 1948 and is enshrined in the CRC, the World Bank - itself bound by it statutes to support UN Conventions has demoted education from a human right to a commodity, a development target that need not be achieved.

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The main international commitments of the 1980s and 1990s do provide a workable basis for reorienting child and youth policy and practice. The formal frameworks are there. The problem is to promote realisation of children’s rights through action. With the exception of those specialised in child or youth issues, most organisations do not have explicit policies on children or young people.

In conclusion, Prof. White referred to the new International Centre for Child and Youth Studies (iCCYS) set up by ISS and International Child Development Initiatives in Leiden and to be formally inaugurated on 13 November. Quoting the Centre’s guiding principles, which emphasise the importance of allowing children and youth to be the agents of their own development, he linked its holistic approach to that of ISS itself.

Interdisciplinarity, a comparative approach, and issues of social and economic justice are the Institute’s lifeblood. It should not follow, or try to stay in tune with the changing priorities of governments of development agencies. ‘The real challenge,’ he said, ‘is to be keeping always ahead of the times and to be ourselves in a position to influence them, always questioning prevailing orthodoxies in theory and prevailing trends in policy.’

Prof. Ben White can be contacted at whiteb@iss.nl.

The full text of his Dies Natalis address ‘’A World Fit For Children? Children and youth in development studies and policy’ can be obtained from promotions@iss.nl. The iCCYS brochure is available from iccys@iss.nl

8 / ALUMNI NEWS

Alumni News Profile

John Juma Ng’ongolo ISS alumnus, MA in Development Studies 1985/86

After obtaining my MA in Development Studies (specialisation: Economic Policy and Planning) at ISS in December 1986, I immediately returned to Tanzania to resume my work as a Tanzanian Foreign Service Officer. I was assigned to coordinate the activities of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern African States (COMESA) and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), and economic cooperation between Tanzania and Asian countries. That enabled me to attend the FAO Conference in Rome in October/November 1987 and bilateral cooperation meetings in China, the Democratic Republic of Korea, Iran and Iraq between 1988 and 1991.

From June 1991 to January 1996, I was posted to the Tanzania High Commission in Nairobi, Kenya where I worked as Head of Chancery assisting the Head of Mission in the overall administration of the mission, in particular the management of the mission’s staff and funds.

Apart from being Head of Chancery, I was involved in trade, investment and tourism promotion. Many foreign investors who visited Kenya or who had operations there saw Tanzania as an alternative destination for their investments and sought my advice on investment opportunities in Tanzania. Many tourists arriving in Kenya also learned that the region’s most magnificent tourist attractions – the Ngorongoro Crater, the Serengeti National Park and Kilimanjaro Mountain - were in Tanzania. It was my job to give them the necessary information.

In December 1991, the Heads of State of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania held their Summit meeting in Nairobi and instructed their ministers to prepare a framework for East African Cooperation. I found myself well prepared to provide the necessary advice to the Tanzanian delegation during the negotiations, having written a dissertation on regional integration in Africa at ISS. I was one of the six East African senior experts who prepared an outline to draft a Tripartite Agreement for East African Cooperation. The agreement, which was signed by the East African Heads of State in November 1993, established a Permanent Tripartite Commission for East African Cooperation, the first cooperation arrangement in the region’s integration process.

When I returned to Tanzania, I was assigned to the Ministry’s newly established unit for East African Cooperation. The unit consisted of a Head and two Schedule Officers, myself and a colleague. Thanks to the excellent leadership of the ministry, the unit managed to coordinate EAC matters effectively, despite its small size.

The other notable achievement in my career is the signing by the East African Heads of State of the Treaty establishing the East African Community on 30 November 1999. The Heads of State met in Arusha, Tanzania, in April 1997 and decided to upgrade the Permanent Tripartite Agreement to a treaty. An East African team of experts was established to work on the outline of the treaty. The team, of which I was a member, met for the first time in Arusha in August 1997 to prepare an outline of the treaty. Thereafter I continued to play coordination and advisory roles on regional integration policies for the Tanzanian delegation during meetings on drafting and implementing the treaty.

In March 2003, I was assigned to the Tanzanian Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York, as a Ministerial Counsellor. I am also the Head of Chancery for the Permanent Mission and deal with trade, investment and tourism promotion.

To conclude, I would like to say that, in an era when economic issues dominate international relations, Foreign Service Officers with a strong background in economics are at ease with the issues at hand. In Tanzania, for example, the country’s foreign policy emphasises the promotion of economic relations through economic diplomacy so as to establish a dynamic domestic economy which will accelerate the country’s development. As an economist and trained diplomat, I find myself quite comfortable in discharging my duties at both multilateral and bilateral meetings. The knowledge I gained during my time at ISS has contributed to my capacity to perform my duties as a diplomat.

John Ng’ongolo can be contacted at ngongolo@yahoo.com

ALUMNI NEWS

Alumni News

Ugandan ISS Alumni Association Large numbers of Ugandans have passed through the gates of ISS since it was opened in 1952. Many more continue to attend programmes with sponsorship from multilateral and bilateral agencies, including the NFP, the World Bank, the World Council of Churches and the EU. There have been attempts in the past to form an ISS alumni chapter in Uganda, but they never produced tangible results.

Instead the small groups of participants continued to meet spontaneously, without a strategic goal.

An opportunity was presented sometime last year when the Dutch Embessy organised a meeting of all NFP alumni and launched the Netherlands Fellowship Alumni Association.

This has since elected office-bearers and has to date published one newsletter.

There was a breakthrough for ISS in June 2003, when it was confirmed that there would be refresher course in Kampala on 12-26 July. Uganda would play host to ISS alumni from several countries in the sub-region to tackle the topical issue of Governance and Integrity. This presented a unique opportunity for ISS alumni to meet and chart a future within the framework of working together with the NFP. ISS shared this view and welcomed it, providing some resources to support the initiative.

On 25 July, during the graduation of the refresher course, the ISS-Ugandan Alumni Association was launched. The Ugandan Minister of State for Higher Education, Dr Beatrice Wabudeya, was present. In her remarks, the minister applauded the stance taken by ISS in fostering policy-oriented research and higher education. She observed that the quality of ISS alumni is a clear testimony of the critical role they continue to play in national development. She welcomed

Mr Kyama welcomes Dr. Wabudeya

the formation of the ISS Alumni Association but warned that it should not evolve into a social club but rather into a powerful forum for policy debate and discussion.

ISS would like to thank Paulo T. Kyama and James Mutabazi for all the efforts and energy they put in preparing the launch of an ISS chapter in Uganda. The Institute wishes the ISSUganda Alumni Association a very good start and is looking forward to receiving a well conceived working plan with suggestions for closer cooperation with ISS on teaching, research and projects.

This is an excerpt from a report by Paulo T. Kyama of the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development and James Mutabazi of the Office of the President.

For further information, please contact paulot.kyama@fmcmofped.co.ug or jmutabazi2001@yahoo.com.

Request for contributions Setting-up a network of ISS correspondents The editorial board and the editors would like to promote more direct input by ISS alumni in DevISSues. Firstly, we would like to receive short articles (approx. 800 words) on development-related topics. New guidelines for submitting articles will soon be available on the ISS website.

We also wish to set up a network of ISS alumni attached to universities, research institutes, ministries and NGOs, who would be willing to act as local correspondents for DevISSues, helping the editors to find interesting publications

by ISS alumni, local academics or journalists.

We are thinking of one correspondent in each country, working on a voluntary basis. Please contact us if you would be interested in becoming a local correspondent for ISS in your country.

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10 / RENÉE JONES-BOS ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEVELOPMENT

Human Rights and Development

‘Poverty is a comprehensive violation of human rights’ On 17 April, to mark the start of the second batch of diploma programmes at ISS, the then Human Rights Ambassador at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Renée Jones-Bos, visited the Institute and gave an address on the link between human rights and development. In her speech she emphasised the importance of adopting a rights based approach to development. Below is an abridged version of the address.

In recent years, a new way of looking at the relationship between human rights and development has emerged: the rights-based approach to development.

Human rights are universal and have over the years been codified in a series of international instruments with corresponding supervisory mechanisms. Linking the development process to these instruments means providing it with a legal foundation and a normative basis to determine the rights and obligations of the actors involved.

The human rights-based approach is about empowering people by enabling them to participate in the process of development and by enhancing the enabling environment for an equitable distribution. It is about giving the poor and vulnerable a stake, a voice and protection in society.

All human rights are important in achieving development. Human rights are both a component of human development (wellbeing for all) and a means to achieving it (participation). The equality of civil and political rights on the one hand and economic, social and cultural rights on the other is therefore one of the basic principles of the Netherlands’ human rights policy.

There is a positive interaction between poverty reduction and the promotion of human rights. The common denominator in human rights and the fight against poverty is human dignity. Nowadays, poverty is seen as a comprehensive violation of human rights: not only of almost all economic and social rights, but also of civil and political rights.

Development and human rights go hand in hand. Development means investing

in people: better education, better healthcare, land rights, better working conditions, and increasing their capacity to grasp opportunities and participate in a meaningful way. In other words: sustainable poverty reduction and sustainable development need to be underpinned by thinking about and including human rights.

OBLIGATION Governments have an obligation to respect, protect and fulfil human rights.

The obligation to respect requires that a state and its organs abstain from any action that hampers the realisation of human rights. It also requires that legislation is in place to guarantee respect for human rights. The obligation to protect obliges the state to prevent violations and, if they happen, to guarantee access to legal remedies.

The obligation to fulfil means facilitating, providing and promoting human rights.

This includes issues of advocacy, public expenditure, economic regulation, infrastructure and creating opportunities.

It is important that these obligations are taken into account in all phases of development cooperation programming.

This means for example that, when analysing the education situation in a country, the extent to which the state meets its obligation to respect, protect and fulfil the right to education should

RENÉE JONES-BOS ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEVELOPMENT / 11

Renée Jones-Bos

be examined. In the planning phase, it should be decided what aspects need to be strengthened; in the implementing phase, the state’s commitment needs to be monitored; and in the assessment phase, it is necessary to decide on ways to improve policies and monitoring.

Other actors have obligations and a role to play. Civil society is of crucial importance, as is the active involvement of the business community. I would also like to stress the crucial role played by women in the development process.

They form the backbone of many societies, are important economic and social actors, and are very often the most vocal defenders of human rights.

ADDED VALUE I am convinced that human rights can add value to the agenda for development.

They draw attention to the responsibility

of governments to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of all people. The tradition of human rights also provides legal tools and institutions - laws, the judiciary, the process of litigation - as a means to secure freedom and human development.

Rights, moreover, lend a moral legitimacy to the objectives of human development.

The rights perspective directs attention to the need for information and a political voice for all people as a development issue – and to civil and political rights as part of the development process.

I would like to end with a quote from the former High Commissioner on Human Rights, Mary Robinson, who said: ‘I am often asked what is the most serious form of human rights violation in the world today, and my reply is consistent: extreme poverty.’ All the more reason for us, as policy-makers, to make the maximum effort to bridge the gap between human rights and development.

Renée Jones-Bos is currently Deputy DirectorGeneral for Regional Policy and Consular Affairs at

Laws and treaties alone cannot guarantee human rights. That is why, in our human rights work, we are shifting from developing norms to their implementation. And that means, among other things, capacity building, strengthening institutions and integrating human rights in our development programmes.

the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She can be contacted at jones-bos@minbuza.nl

12 / EUROPEAN INVESTMENT IN CUBA

Liduine Zumpolle

European Investors Help Keep The Regime In Power Pax Christi Netherlands has been active in Cuba since 1991. It denounces human rights violations and supports independent civil initiatives that promote a

Pax Christi Netherlands believes that civil initiatives by peaceful dissidents should be supported by the EU and that, instead of complying with the conditions imposed by the dictator, European investors in Cuba should comply with international labour standards. Otherwise their investments just help to keep an extremely repressive totalitarian regime in power.

peaceful transition towards democracy, like Oswaldo Paya’s ‘Proyecto Varela’, its counterpart from the start. In September 2003, after having previously presented 11,000 signatures to the National Assembly asking for democracy and respect for human rights, Paya succeeded again in collecting 14,000 signatures, in spite of all the repression in the country.

For the first time in history, the European Union announced on 5 June that it is imposing ‘political sanctions’ on Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Diplomatic and cultural contacts will be subject to restrictions while the policy on Cuba is re-evaluated.

Furthermore - in line with the recommendations of organisations like Pax Christi dissidents will now be invited to EU embassies as official guests to celebrate national events. The background to the sanctions was the arrest in April of 75 independent journalists, union leaders and other peaceful dissidents, who were given prison sentences ranging from 6 to 28 years. Many of them were volunteers who had done nothing but collect signatures for the Varela project. Shortly afterwards, three black people from Havana’s slums were executed for attempting to escape from the country in a hijacked ferry boat. Life sentences were handed

down for other hijack attempts that took place in the same period.

The announcement of this diplomatic step by Europe - Cuba’s most important trade partner and aid provider - inspired Fidel Castro to an unprecedentedly fierce public tirade against his former European friends. He called them ‘mafia’ who had joined with ‘international fascist imperialism’ and who were serving the ‘nazifascist American government’ well.

This was a historical display that Cubans in exile interpret as possibly the final spasms of a desperate regime. It was also a risky display, in view of Castro’s considerable economic and political dependence on Europe. Around the world, protests against the new wave of repression in the last unadulterated dictatorship in the western hemisphere are increasing.

BUSINESS AS USUAL The Netherlands is also concerned about the seriousness of the human rights violations and has had a critical influence on European policy. But while we are protesting the violation of human rights by the regime, we are subsidising it with export credits. Dutch entrepreneurs continue to do business with Fidel Castro, using development funds, under condi-

EUROPEAN INVESTMENT IN CUBA / 13

tions that mock international labour legislation rules. During the recent wave of arrests in late March, a trade mission departed for Havana as usual. The only change was that, at the last moment, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs withdrew the senior official who was to serve as chairman.

The Minister for Development Cooperation, Agnes van Ardenne, thinks Dutch industry has a more significant role to play in developing countries. To encourage investments, there are export-stimulating measures, including trade credit insurance to minimise business risks in an insecure developing country. In addition, debts arising from poor administration or corruption in the developing country are taken over by the Dutch government.

This favourable scheme for entrepreneurs is also intended to benefit the population in the developing country concerned.

But what if the investments are made in a country where the population is given no opportunity whatsoever to take its own initiative, and where there is not a hint of democratic reform?

Like the Netherlands, Cuba has signed and ratified the agreements set down by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). But whereas in our own country we are expected to comply with the requirements, in Cuba no notice is taken of them. Foreign companies are forced to do business in joint ventures with a totalitarian state where independent trade unions are forbidden and collective bargaining is unheard of. Free association, political parties and private initiative with any lasting chance do not exist. Three generations of Cubans have never known free elections, an independent legal system or a free press. They have grown

up in the certainty that the individual has no power and is dependent from cradle to grave on the Party, and especially on the whims of its leader. It has become hard to find anyone without either a family member or someone they know who has seen the inside of a prison cell.

The country is verging on bankruptcy, but the regime is kept going by tourism and foreign business, with the Netherlands playing an important role.

More than thirty Dutch companies operate in Cuba, with considerable support from our government. Together, they constitute a powerful factor in Havana.

But this power is never used to openly raise the issue of human rights violations, because they say that they do not ‘engage in politics’. Nonetheless, it is common knowledge that foreign companies in Cuba are automatically obliged to act in breach of the most fundamental labour rules, or ILO human rights rules.

To start with, a company is not able to recruit or pay its own personnel. They have to depend instead on the Cuban government, which checks employees for political reliability and not on aptitude. The state-run temporary employment agency pays a meagre wage in worthless pesos, which is not enough for workers to make ends meet. The wages are approximately one tenth of the actual salary paid in dollars to the state by the foreign company for the temporary employee. This is how the Cuban regime is directly financed by foreign business.

STATE UNION In addition, Cuban employees are obliged to join the state union CTC, which does not exist to promote their interests but

to keep a watchful eye on them. Any protest by the employee or employer against summary dismissal is pointless.

All foreign entrepreneurs are forced to admit the state security services into their company, who, often under the guise of ordinary personnel, spy on their colleagues. In this way, the foreign investor is directly implicated in the internal repression system.

The financial risks for the Dutch entrepreneur in Cuba are negligible. Should the Cuban state default on its financial obligations or unilaterally dissolve contracts because the foreigner is seen as a rival, it is ultimately the Dutch taxpayer who covers the losses.

Decades of European trade relations and quiet diplomacy have been unable to bring about democratic reforms in Cuba.

On the contrary, the party nomenklatura has been able to enrich itself enormously and has also been able to assure itself a financially secure future after the change of power. The Netherlands and others are therefore not only turning a blind eye to a dictatorship, they are also presenting it with a gift, funded from their own public resources. Is that really what development cooperation is supposed to be about? And what will it be like after the inevitable transition, when the now oppressed and imprisoned opposition is in control? What view will they take of all those Europeans who - while arguing that they wanted to offer an alternative to US policy - kept the former oppressor economically in the saddle for so long?

Liduine Zumpolle works for Pax Christi Netherlands and is an ISS alumna (Diploma in Social Policy 1967-68).

She can be contacted at zumpolle@planet.nl

14 / SEBASTIAN TORRES LEDEZMA

An Empirical Analysis of Economic Growth for Uruguay and the Latin American Region: 1950-2000

Sebastian Torres Ledezma

In the last Development ISSues we announced that former ISS MA

low poverty and inequality levels, and countries’ overall growth rates.

student Sebastian Torres Ledezma had been awarded the prestigious AIID-World Bank prize for his thesis ‘An Empirical Analysis of Economic Growth for Uruguay and the Latin American Region: 1950-2000’. The prize is awarded jointly by the Amsterdam Institute for International

The thesis investigates, from a comparative perspective, the extent to which the Latin American and Uruguayan economic growth experiences of the second half of the twentieth century can be assessed within the framework of both traditional and modern theories of economic growth.

Development and the World Bank to the best theses in international development. Sebastian Torres was a student in the 2001 - 2002 Economics of Development programme and was awarded the ISS Research Paper prize for his thesis in December 2002. Below is an edited summary of his prizewinning thesis.

The literature studies the relationship between countries’ economic growth and a variety of social, economic and political indicators. The most recent

empirical analyses find a positive association between variables that reflect political stability, high literacy rates, homogeneous middle class societies,

According to Filgueira, Furtado and Kaztman (2000): ‘From the early decades of the twentieth century onwards, the level of equity achieved in Uruguay, and the sophistication of its welfare institutions, set the country apart from the rest of Latin America… The absence of significant ethnic and cultural divisions, substantial primary product surpluses and early democratic consolidation were some of the factors that helped establish the socio-cultural foundations which were to give rise to this special position.’1

SEBASTIAN TORRES LEDEZMA / 15

However, during the second half of the twentieth century, the country performed poorly in terms of economic growth.

Before the 1982 financial crisis, when GDP fell by 7.5%, the Uruguayan economy already had the lowest average expansion in the region: from 1945 to 1983, its rate was just 2%, against a Latin American average of 5.4%. Does the country constitute a paradoxical case of economic growth?

The objectives of the research paper were to empirically assess the extent to which both exogenous and endogenous growth theories are able to account for the twentieth century experience of economic growth in Uruguay and Latin America, and to determine the main factors underlying the stunted growth performance of the Uruguayan economy in the twentieth century.

Recent developments in the theory of growth have revealed the importance of various factors in consolidating long-run economic growth. According to Mankiw, Romer and Weil (1992), the augmented Solow model says that ‘differences in saving, education, and population growth should explain cross-country differences in income per capita.’2 For Easterly and Levine (1997), poor rates of economic growth are mainly associated with high ethnic fragmentation. Temple and Johnson (1998) argue that ‘social capability’ is one of the main determinants of economic growth. Easterly (2000) affirms that ‘relatively homogenous middleclass societies have more income and growth, because they have more human capital and infrastructure accumulation, they have better national economic policies, more democracy, less political instability, and more urbanization.’3

of Latin America. In 1997, according to ECLAC figures, inequality measured by the quotient between the average incomes of the richest 10% and the poorest 40% was equal to 4.7, compared to 9.6 for Argentina, 11.8 for Chile and 16.8 for Brazil. Poverty, measured by the percentage of households below the poverty line, was 6% for Uruguay, 13% for Argentina, 19% for Chile, and as high as 50% for Ecuador. According to Kaztman, Filgueira and Furtado (2000) ‘the good relative performance of Uruguay in the sphere of social justice has its counterpart in the legitimacy that the country’s citizens attribute to its democracy and institutions’. By 1995, and after one dictatorship and fifty years of economic stagnation, 86% of Uruguayans considered that ‘democracy is preferable to any other form of government’ and 77% considered that ‘the way you vote can make things different in the future.’5 With reference to the educational system, by the 1960s, Uruguay already had a literacy rate of more than 90%, with primary and secondary schools and the National University free and open to every citizen.

By 1962, Marcel Niedergang commented: ‘At 0.8%, mortality rate is the lowest of all Latin America. The birth rate (2%) is low, being another proof of the high quality living standards of the Uruguayans.’6 Taking a wider period of analysis than Mankiw, Romer and Weil (1992), the study shows that the Solow model accounts for a large fraction of the observed international cross-country variation in income per capita. Moreover, the endogenous approach, tested by the inclusion of a proxy for the human capital dimension, augments the predicted power of the model.

estimates based on panel data. With this methodological framework, the fit of the regression is improved and the speed of the convergence rate is very similar to the one predicted by the neoclassical model.

The empirical analysis shows that Uruguay achieved its steady state level of income around 1950 and that, behind this country’s stunted growth performance are a number of relevant factors that the neo-classical and the modern growth theories do not explain. The paper recognises that both internal causes (inflation, fiscal deficits, rent-seeking behaviour, corruption) and external causes (unstable region, oil prices shocks, terms of trade deterioration) explain the Uruguayan growth failure to some extent.

However, when Uruguay is compared with other LDCs which achieved much better growth in the second half of the twentieth century, there is a clear paradox: the country with the overall better economic social and political conditions grew less.

Therefore, the thesis shows that while standard cross-country regressions can highlight some useful factors that are statistically correlated with economic growth, a richer understanding of the dynamics of growth at the country level is needed and requires a thorough investigation of the institutional and economic structures.

1 Filgueira, F., M. Furtado and R. Kaztman (2000) ‘New Challenges for Equity in Uruguay’, CEPAL Review 72, pp. 79-80.

2 Mankiw, N.G., D. Romer and D.N. Weil (1992) ‘A

Uruguay has historically been considered a small, ethnically and linguistically homogenous country. According to Spektorowski (2000), these factors implied that: ‘… Uruguay’s politics were not marked by the regional and communal rivalries that rent most of Latin America… the parties provided almost the only organisational structure that could both keep the rural poor at bay and grant its leaders direct access to the government… the distinctive process in the growth of the Uruguayan party system is that it grew out of political armies…’4

CONVERGENCE Regarding what is defined as the second main prediction of the neo-classical theory, the paper tests for both unconditional and conditional convergence. The evidence supports the claim of conditional convergence among the different samples of countries analysed. However, when the human capital dimension is included in the Latin American case, the results are less consistent. In this respect, the paper attempts to overcome some of the main econometric problems that can arise in ordinary least squares estimation.

In terms of inequality and poverty, the country is clearly different from the rest

In addition to the cross-section analyses, a start is made on obtaining convergence

Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth’, Quarterly Journal of Economics 107(2), p. 433.

3 Easterly, W. (2000) ‘The Middle Class Consensus and Economic Development’, World Bank Working Paper (December), p. 28.

4 Spektorowski, A. (2000) ‘Nationalism and Democratic Construction: The Origins of Argentina and Uruguay’s political cultures in comparative perspective’, Bulletin of Latin American Research 19: 81-99.

5 Filgueira, F., M. Furtado and R. Kaztman (2000) ‘New Challenges for Equity in Uruguay’, CEPAL Review 72, p. 81.

6 Niedergang, M. (1962) Les Vingt Amériques Latines. Paris: Librairie Plon, p.112.

Sebastian Torres Ledezma can be contacted at maguilatorres@hotmail.com

16 / PROJECT NEWS

Project News INSTITUTIONAL COOPERATION: PROJECTS AND PARTNERSHIPS

New approach, new challenges In June, Dr Max Spoor completed a more than four-year term as Head of the Office of Research, Projects and Advisory Services (ORPAS) at ISS. Here Dr Spoor, Associate Professor of Transition Economics at the Institute and coordinator or the Centre for the Study of Transition and Development (CESTRAD), reviews the international cooperation activities currently being undertaken by ISS and its academic staff, and presents the challenges for the future.

As an international centre of learning focused on development studies, ISS has always engaged in a wide spectrum of institutional cooperation activities. In the 1970s and 1980s there were institutional capacity building projects with the University of Khartoum (Sudan), the University of the Andes (Colombia), the University of Harare (Zimbabwe) and the University of Colombo (Sri Lanka). In the past decade new partners emerged, particularly in the context of projects financed by SAIL, an umbrella organisation of five specialised Dutch centres of higher learning established in 1996. These projects included setting up joint degree MA (or diploma) programmes and institutional capacity building. Examples include those with the National Economics University in Hanoi and the University of Economics in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), Windhoek University (Namibia), Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia), and FLACSO (Costa Rica).

In addition, ISS works with various Dutch partners, such as the University of Wageningen, in a cooperative project with Nanjing Agricultural University (China), and the Maastricht School of Management, with the Vietnam’s Women’s Union.

Finally, there is a recent cooperative project with the State Academy of Economics and Management in Novosibirsk (Russia), which has broadened the scope to include the transition economies. Other forms of institutional cooperation have been developed under the heading of advisory services, such as with the Kenyan Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA) in Kenya, financed by the EU, and with various partners in Nicaragua, Bolivia and Honduras on monitoring the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) for the Swedish International Development Agency. Finally, ISS works together with partners in the South, in joint research projects, including one in Indonesia, financed by the Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences, and others in Ethiopia and Vietnam, for UNIDO. The SAIL programme and the Joint Financing Programme for Cooperation in Higher Education (MHO), which funded cooperation between academic institutions in developing countries and the Netherlands, have been superseded by the Netherlands Programme for Institutional

Strengthening of Post-secondary Education and Training Capacity (NPT), which is administered by the Netherlands Organisation for International Cooperation in Higher Education (Nuffic). The new NPT aims to increase the influence of academic institutions in developing countries, which can submit project ideas to the Dutch embassy. The embassies will make an initial selection, after which Nuffic will call for tenders, to which any Dutch academic or professional education institution can respond. Like the NPT programme, Nuffic’s tailor-made training programme (NFP-TP) also operates according to tender procedures. To apply for support under the NFP-TP, an organisation in one of the 56 countries with which the Netherlands cooperates on a bilateral multisectoral or thematic basis can propose a short-term tailor-made training programme. How this new and - on paper - more demand-oriented programme will develop still remains unclear. However, with the SAIL programmes rapidly being completed and new NPT projects not operational before 2004, the institutional development project portfolio of ISS and other academic institutions in this field is most likely to encounter a serious dip.

A BRIDGE TOO FAR Whether, in the end, the demand-oriented approach will be more efficient, transparent and accessible to partners in the South is rather questionable. Tendering takes no account important issues like institutional continuity, trust and personal networks, while an enormous effort is required from the Dutch institutions preparing the tenders and from Nuffic in managing the selection, tendering procedures and execution of the new programme. The market-oriented approach, so popular in the past decade, seems here, too, to be going ‘a bridge too far’. Nevertheless, ISS has to become very active in this new game and it should be able to continue and even expand its institutional cooperation programme, financed

by NPT and other funds, such as the EU. Its unique network of institutional partners in the South, which was formally established during the October 2002 Anniversary Conference, can be a great advantage in achieving this goal.

A real challenge for the future is to promote more teaching, training and research activities with institutional partners in the South and East. As a consequence of these projects and partnerships, a larger number of postgraduate students will be enrolled in joint-degree programmes that are delivered in situ, supported from the home base in The Hague. Finally, ISS academic staff could better exploit their comparative advantage over Dutch universities in the contracting of advisory services and externally financed research. Apart from the acquired financial resources, the results will feed back qualitatively into the Institute’s regular and tailor-made teaching programmes, its real ‘backbone’ in the past and near future. Overall, this is quite a challenge for the coming years.

Dr Spoor can be contacted at spoor@iss.nl

PROJECT NEWS / 17

Project News

Contract-Financed Technical Cooperation and Local Ownership João Guimarães Sida, the Swedish development agency, uses contract-financed technical cooperation (KTS) as a form of technical assistance, mainly in countries that do not qualify as traditional partner countries for Swedish aid.

In 2001-2002, a team from ISS carried out an evaluation of Sida’s KTS activities.

In KTS projects a local partner organisation (LPO) enters a contract for technical assistance with a Swedish consultant.

Although it is not a party to this contract, Sida finances part of it. KTS projects involve transfer or development of technical knowledge, mainly through training or consultancy services. They provide no financial support for purchasing equipment, and lay the emphasis on competent local partners, demand-driven projects and cost sharing by the LPO. THE EVALUATION The evaluation carried out by the ISS team had three main aims: to study how KTS is applied in different national contexts, to assess local ownership in KTS projects, and to analyse the relationship between KTS and local ownership in different national contexts.

The evaluation was expected to achieve greater clarity about KTS, the kinds of partners suitable for KTS, and about how it should be applied in different national contexts. It was also expected to provide input for the development of a general policy on KTS. KTS was studied in seven countries (Lithuania, Ukraine, Mongolia, Botswana, Mozambique, Egypt and Guatemala) and 39 projects were selected for analysis. Seven field teams analysed each national context and the selected projects.

A ‘core team’, comprising Raymond Apthorpe, Peter de Valk and João Guimarães, designed and set up the evaluation, led most country studies and combined the country reports into a synthesis report1.

MAIN FINDINGS The study confirmed that KTS is indeed applied flexibly across projects and countries. Perhaps because of this, many LPOs fail to perceive KTS as a specific form of cooperation, with distinguishing characteristics.

The projects studied achieved remarkably high rates of success, high levels of local ownership of objectives and of knowledge outputs, and somewhat less high ownership of project processes. Surprisingly, local ownership of formal project evaluation is practically non-existent, remaining firmly under Sida control.

Analysis of the ownership of processes, particularly project implementation, led to the introduction of the concept of co-ownership: ownership shared by the LPO and the Swedish consultant and, partly, by Sida. Perhaps the most important general lesson of this evaluation is that project ownership does not have to be exclusively local. Indeed most LPOs indicated that they prefer to share ownership with the consultants, rather than assuming it all themselves.

In many cases, the LPOs’ organisational capacity and ownership of processes grew significantly in the course of the project.

The high success rates of KTS projects are largely explained by the way in which the motivations and incentives of the main partners in the KTS triangle – the LPO, the consultant and Sida – are aligned with each other and with project objectives. Over time, relations of co-ownership often evolve into genuine partnerships.

As might be expected, KTS does have some positive influence on local ownership. There are, however, significant differences in the influence of different KTS characteristics. The following characteristics make the most important contribution to ensuring project success and strong local ownership: content of the cooperation, emphasis on competent local partners and on demand-driven projects, Swedish consultants, projects of a limited size and scope, and the limited duration of project phases.

One of the most interesting findings of the study is that Sida often plays the role of principal, with the LPO and consultant as agents. The main incentive used by Sida to encourage good performance is structuring projects as uccessions of relatively short phases, and making the approval of each phase dependent on success in the previous one.

The level of risk is determined by the national context.

Broadly speaking, the less developed a country, the higher the risk for KTS projects. This means that it may be possible to apply KTS in more countries than at present, if care is taken to identify and compensate for extra risk. The key question then is not whether a country is more or less suitable for KTS, but whether competent LPOs can be found in that country which are insulated from their environment to some extent.

1

This report and the country study reports can be downloaded from http://www.sida.se.

João Guimarães is Senior Lecturer in Local and Regional Development at ISS and was the team leader of the KTS evaluation team. He can be contacted at guimaraes@iss.nl

18 / NEWS

DevISSues next issue Special theme number Children, Youth and Development To coincide with this year’s Dies Natalis address (see page 6) and the opening in November of the international Centre for Child and Youth Studies, a joint initiative by ISS and International Child Development Initiatives in Leiden,

the next DevISSues will be devoted to the theme of Children, Youth and Development.

The editors would be pleased to receive contributions relevant to this theme.

Take part in the online web debate ‘Shaping a New Africa’ Africa has top priority in Dutch Development policy. The Dutch government is convinced that the political, economic and social situation in many African countries has to be improved dramatically. In her Africa policy paper, ‘Strong People, Poor States’, Minister for Development Cooperation Agnes van Ardenne outlines the main focal points of her Africa policy.

The Minister wants to know what you think of this policy.

She has therefore set up an online web discussion, ‘Shaping a New Africa’. For seven weeks, from 5 November to 19 December, a new discussion item will be launched each Monday morning.

Minister Van Ardenne will be the first to give her response.

Everyone - politicians, policy-makers, students, academics from Africa and around the world - is invited to contribute.

Every week, a summary of all contributions to the debate will be published on the website. In March 2004 a report and recommendations will be submitted to the Minister.

The most creative and innovative contributions will be discussed with the Minister during the National Africa Conference in April 2004.

If you would like to participate in the online debate on Africa, go to www.afrikabeleid.nl from 5 November at 2.30 pm.

More information on the National Africa Conference can be obtained from s.van.zoeren@ncdo.nl.

Staff News New staff

Dr Johan van Dijk Head of Projects and Advisory Services (ORPAS) (as of 15 October 2003)

This centre is part of the newly formed Barcelona Interuniversity Institute for International Studies (IBEI).

Janna van der Meulen Deputy Secretary (as of 1 July 2003) Sandra Nijhof Communications and Marketing Officer (as of 1 September 2003; former ISS Secretary)

United Kingdom: Dr. Chris Kay has been awarded the title of Honorary Research Fellow in Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham (from 1 October 2003 to 31 October 2006)

Congratulations

Visiting Researchers China: Ms Miao Hong Kong, Research Centre for Eco- Environmental Sciences, Beijing, China

Technical and Administrative Staff Eric Baedts ISS Secretary (as of 1 September 2003)

Belgium: Professor Bas de Gaay Fortman, ISS Emeritus Professor of Political Economy, has been appointed to the Msgr Willy Onclin Chair in Comparative Canon Law at the Catholic University of Leuven 2003-2004.

Wieke Blaauw Deputy Academic Registrar, Office of Educational Affairs (as of 1 July 2003; former ISS Deputy Secretary)

Spain: Dr Max Spoor has been appointed as visiting Professor to the Centre d’Informacion I Documentacio Internacionals a Barcelona (CIDOB).

Academic Staff Peter Bardoel Lecturer in Academic Skills (as of 1 September) Barbara Mac Dermott Lecturer in Academic Skills (as of 1 September 2003) Dr Donna Gomien Senior Lecturer in Human Rights (as of 1 November 2003) Dr Dubravka Zarkov Senior lecturer in Women, Gender and Development (as of 1 September 2003)

Israel: Ms Miri Levin-Rosalis, Dept. of Education, Ben-Gurin University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel

PROJECT NEWS / 19

Project News

Water privatisation: a model of private/public partnership?

On 18 October, a number of ISS students and staff attended a session on water privatisation sponsored by the Transnational Institute and the Corporate Europe Observatory in Amsterdam. The speakers were very critical of schemes that link development aid for the financing of new investment in water infrastructure to the granting of management contracts to multinational water companies.

The panel pointed out that many of the big private sector players in international water management are European companies, like Suez, Vivendi, Thames Water, Bi-Water and the Dutch energy company Nuon. Drawing on experiences in Asia, Latin America and Africa, they argued that when multinationals take over management of public water utilities they impose prices the poor cannot pay, and have often failed to deliver promised infrastructural investment. The panel argued that access to water is a basic human right, so profit should not be the bottom line.

The speakers observed that the EU and national governments are supporting the obligatory opening up of service markets, including public utilities, in developing countries to foreign capital. WTO reciprocity agreements do not help developing countries because they do not have service-sector enterprises that can compete in international markets. Often, European multinationals do not bring their own capital, but take advantage of concessional finance offered to the developing country

by the EU or member countries. Developing country debt thus funds profits for EU companies.

Some members of the audience provided more examples of problems in water privatisation. Others saw, however, a role for public-private partnership in water provisioning. They pointed out that many people were excluded from access to water when it was controlled by public utility companies, and argued that the private sector had a role to play in extending access to water. They argued that water is a scarce commodity, and that it therefore should have a price. They thus saw a role for private capital and markets in water provisioning. The panellists agreed that private sector actors could have a role in infrastructural investment, but they argued that water delivery should not be organised on a purely commercial basis, in either the developing or the developing world. They described alternatives, such as cooperative participatory water control in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

If you would like to learn more about an international campaign to stop the privatisation of water and develop new strategies for post-privatisation, see ‘Alternatives to Privatization’ at http://www.tni.org/; ‘Water for All Campaign, at www.wateractivist.org; the World Water Forum at http://www.world.waterforum3.com/, and the Corporate Europe Observatory at http://www.corporateeurope.org/.

For the World Bank’s response, see http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/ESSD/ardext.nsf/18ParentDoc/WaterResourcesManagement.

20 / REFRESHER COURSES

Refresher Courses

Integrating Good Governance in the Higher Education Curriculum in Africa This year’s refresher course in Africa was held in Kampala, Uganda, in collaboration with the Human Rights and Peace Centre of the Faculty of Law at Makerere University. For the past two years, ISS has been collaborating with HURIPEC and four other institutions of higher learning in the Great Lakes Region of Africa to establish and jointly offer an MA programme on Good Governance, Conflict Analysis and Conflict Management. The alumni refresher course was part of this initiative. It brought together academics, researchers and policy analysts from academic and non-academic institutions to look for ways of developing new or improving existing curricula on good governance in institutions of higher learning.

The core teaching team for the course comprised Dr Paschal B. Mihyo and Prof. Mohamed Salih from ISS and Mr Samuel Tindifa, Director of the Human Rights and Peace Centre at Makerere University. It was attended by 22 people from nine African countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia). Due to the expense of travelling, the organisers decided that this year’s course should be restricted to Eastern and Southern Africa. Next year, there will be a course aimed at North and West Africa.

The theme of the course was ‘Integrating Good Governance in the Curriculum of Higher Education in Africa’. The aim was to develop a framework for incorporating good governance into the curriculum of institutions of higher learning.

Since most of the institutions have been developing courses in this area, the course provided them with a platform to harmonise their initiatives and develop common frameworks on key issues in governance, human rights and conflict aversion and management. The discussions were used to identify key issues for research and inclusion in curricula.

The course was structured around a combination of interactive learning methods. The following major themes were covered: • Theories of governance in development.

• The link between good governance, democracy and development.

• Education, governance and democracy: from indoctrination to liberating the African mind.

• Human rights, democracy and economic performance in Africa.

• Good governance and improvement of service delivery.

• Good governance through people-centred development.

• Good governance and access to affordable justice.

• Strategies for combating corruption.

The course ended with a detailed set of issues that could be integrated in the curricula of African institutes of higher education and universities. It also recommended issues for research. The evaluation was very positive. The graduation ceremony was used to launch the ISS Chapter of the UgandaNetherlands Fellowship Alumni Association. The launch was attended by over sixty Ugandan ISS alumni living in Kampala.

For more information please contact Dr Paschal Mihyo at mihyo@iss.nl

ISS regularly organises refresher courses for its alumni in various parts of the world.

If you have any suggestions for a refresher course in your country or region, please contact Wieke Blaauw at blaauw@iss.nl.

THE HAGUE ACADEMIC COALITION / 21

The Hague Academic Coalition

Academic Institution Building on International Law, Peace and Development in The Hague

Interview with Professor Hans Opschoor, ISS Rector, by Janna van der Meulen.

The Hague is known worldwide as the home of many regional and international organisations in the fields of justice and peace, such as the Peace Palace and the International Criminal Court. The city also has a history of hosting activities in these areas, dating back to the Peace Conferences around the beginning of the twentieth century.

Recently, five institutions (the Carnegie Foundation, the T.M.C. Asser Institute, the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, the Institute of Social Studies and Clingendael Institute) established The Hague Academic Coalition, with the intention of raising the effectiveness and efficiency of their work in relation to The Hague’s role as a city of peace and justice. ISS Rector Hans Opschoor played an important part in initiating the Coalition.

What are the objectives of the Hague Academic Coalition?

Of the five institutions that are participating in The Hague Academic Coalition, three have a specific focus on international law, one on social transformation and change, and one on international relations. Even though they have different missions and target groups, the five institutions operate in complementary ways in adjacent, and sometimes overlapping, fields. Each is relatively small - ISS is the biggest, with an academic staff of about 75. Together, however, they represent a significant pool of human resources and information that implementation and policy-oriented institutions in The Hague can - and increasingly do - capitalise on. HAC aims to offer a crossing point between institutions for knowledge generation and sharing on the one hand, and implementation institutions on the other.

Can you tell us something about HAC’s activities?

HAC is scheduling a series of annual conferences under the overall heading ‘From Peace to Justice’. The conferences

are targeted at the international community of practitioners and academics in the fields of international law, international relations and social transformation, with a focus on ongoing peace and justice-related activities in The Hague. In March 2004 the Coalition will organise a conference ‘From Peace to Justice: the role of international law, negotiations and international development’. This will be followed in 2005 with a conference on ‘International Criminal Accountability and the Rights of Children’. ISS will take the lead in organisíng this conference.

Secondly, HAC operates a website as a portal to developments and events related to issues in these fields. The website (www.thehaguelegalcapital.nl) also provides links to the websites of the members of the coalition. Thirdly, staff from the five HAC institutions contribute to the research and teaching of the other members.

What can the Institute of Social Studies contribute to HAC? ISS possesses capability in academic fields like international political economy, international relations, and social science in general, with a focus on transformation and change related to peace and the rule of law. Law-based faculties or institutions alone are unlikely to provide this. For instance, ISS offers a series of public lectures attracting substantial numbers of interested staff from other academic and non-academic organisations and the international community in Holland at large. It also offers workshops and think-tank facilities.

Professor Opschoor gave a presentation on The Hague as Capital of Justice and Peace at the commemoration of relations between Korea and the Netherlands. This took place on Cheja Island, an island in the Pacific Ocean with a history of focusing on peace and regional cooperation.

For more information on the HAC conferences, please contact Janna van der Meulen at meulen@iss.nl

22

In memoriam

Edward Said - A Felled Friend

I feel wretched to the core having to pen these lines so abruptly after having participated in the recent joyous event where Edward Said received the final honorary degree of his life at ISS in May 2003. Despite his debilitating illness, he delivered a characteristically erudite and robust lecture on ‘Orientalism Once More’, in the course of which he addressed, among other things, the hijacking of American power by George Bush Jr. He found the energy to meet the press and address a TV audience more than once, as well as go through the rituals and rigours of the protocol of the occasion. And despite all this he found the time, with a smile, to engage, with his irrepressible wit and gracious charm, each of a winding queue of colleagues and admirers who wished to take home a little piece of his charismatic personality, and perhaps a photograph to cherish. When I dropped in at his hotel on the last evening of his stay, he was dining with friends.

When I left, he got up midway through the meal and insisted on coming out of the hotel to see me off. He brushed aside my protests with a wave. I remember well his last words to me: ‘Ashwani’, he said chidingly, ‘Don’t forget I am an Arab!’ He had a way of making his friends feel very special, and as one of them noted, he probably had three thousand or more who would consider themselves members of this ‘inner’ circle.

None will mourn him like the extended Arab family will, of course. But Edward Said was clearly one of the world’s modern greats. He accomplished more in a single lifetime that most mortals might have struggled to attain over several. And this, despite having lived the past thirteen years of his life in the omnipresent shadow of the Damoclean sword of the leukaemia that ultimately claimed him. If anything, this threat seemed to have intensified his efforts and prodigious productivity even further. There were manuscripts on the anvil, as always, and right to the end, there was no let up in his massively read and influential regular column in Al-Ahram. Cruelly, his final lecture of acceptance of the honorary doctorate at ISS was released in published form the very day news arrived of his death.

How he will be missed! By how many! And how fondly!

Ashwani Saith

The text of the laudatio delivered by Ashwani Saith on the occasion of the award of the Honorary Doctorate to Edward Said can be found at: www.iss.nl

ISS Agenda 2003

11 December

Inaugural Lecture Professor Jan Pronk 16.00 Aula ISS

2004

5 February

Inaugural lecture Professor Sherman Robinson 16.00 Aula ISS

25-27 March

From Peace to Justice. The Role of International Law, Negotiations and International Development.

Organised by The Hague Academic Coalition. This unique conference is the first in a series of The Hague conferences with the recurring theme ‘From Peace to Justice’. Renowned speakers will be invited, workshops on specific issues related to the topic of the conference will be held at each institute on 26 March, and social events will be organised. More details to follow.

15 April

Inaugural lecture Professor Amina Mama as holder of the Prince Claus Chair 16.00 Aula ISS

March

International Criminal Accountability and the Rights of Children. Organised by the ISS and the United Nations University within the framework of The Hague Academic Coalition.

2005

TEACHING NEWS / 23

Teaching News

Designing our way into the new world order FIRST POST-GRADUATE COURSE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS IN SURINAME CONCLUDED

On 7 June 2003 in Paramaribo, 25 participants graduated from a postgraduate International Relations Course organised by the FHR Lim A Po Institute for Social Studies in cooperation with ISS, under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Suriname.

For several decades, as a result of inward-looking development strategies and a harsh structural adjustment programme, Suriname fell behind in the development of human capital and infrastructure suitable for a new outward-looking development strategy. Education and training were inadequate and the country was in danger of being globalised by default.

Against this background, the Minister of Foreign Affairs took the initiative for a programme to rapidly enhance the country’s international relations knowledge and diplomatic capability.

The FHR Lim A Po Institute, established three years ago, was selected to implement this initiative and to spearhead efforts to position Suriname in the mainstream of current integration movements. By entering into a cooperation agreement with ISS, FHR ensured that the programme complied with international standards.

The course was the main element of a cycle of studies under the theme ‘Designing our way into the new world order’. It consisted of 10 one-week modules of 30 hours each. The topics were Comparative Development Perspectives, International Political Relations, the Economy of International Relations, and International Law. The course concluded with a synthesising seminar. Lecturers involved were Dr Wil Hout, Dr Howard Nicholas and Dr Mansoob Murshed from ISS, Professor Surya Subedi of the University of Middlesex, UK, and Dr Jessica Byron of the University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica.

The ISS Academic Registrar, Dr. Marianne van de Weiden, facilitated the preparation of the course. Dr Karin Arts and Dr Howard Nicholas were the course coordinators.

Those from the latter included senior staff from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Commerce and Industry, Labour, Defence and Planning. The selection policy was based on the principle of equal representation of the public and the private sector, in line with the concept of public-private partnership and networking as instruments for cooperation and development.

The costs of the course were recovered from cost-based tuition fees charged to participants from the private sector and from scholarships provided from private sources to participants from the public sector.

At the graduation ceremony, which was attended on behalf of ISS by former Rector Professor Dick Wolfson, the director of the FHR Institute, Hans Lim A Po referred to the objective of the course, which was to prepare a cross-section of professionals for their task in conducting international relations in the current global environment. This objective, he said, was amply achieved. Participants performed extraordinarily

well, as evidenced by their overall average score compared to the ISS benchmark. He accredited these results to the enthusiasm and commitment of the participants and the dedication of the lecturers. He referred to the success of the course as an important platform for further growth of the FHR Institute and announced that the second intake of the course is scheduled for January 2004.

The course was policy oriented from a third world perspective, balanced in terms of academic teaching and professional workplace relevance, skills intensive and highly interactive.

For each of the three topics, participants obtained grades for group and individual assignments and examinations.

Professor Wolfson, presenting the diplomas, extended congratulations to the graduates and the FHR Institute on behalf of the ISS Rector, Professor Hans Opschoor. He said that the course had also been a success from an ISS perspective.

The Institute was impressed by the perfect organisation and the exemplary results. He confirmed ISS’s intention to continue the programme in partnership with the FHR Institute on a sustainable basis.

At the end of the graduation ceremony, the graduates praised the standards of the course, expressed their gratitude for the opportunity offered to them by the FHR Institute, ISS and sponsors and announced the setting up of the Association of FHR Alumni.

Participants came from both the private and the public sectors.

For more information please contact Dr Karin Arts at arts@iss.nl

24

Working Papers ISS Working Papers can be found

ISS Working Papers General Series * ISSN 0921-0201

on the ISS website at: www.iss.nl, Publications/Working Papers.

They can also be ordered in hard copy from The Bookshop, PO Box 29776, 2502 LT The Hague,

378 379 380

the Netherlands 381 382

Peter Waterman, Place, Space and the Reinvention of Social Emancipation on a Global Scale: Second Thoughts on the Third World Social Forum (July) Des Gasper, Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach in Perspective: Purposes, Methods and Sources for an Ethics of Human Development (July) Wicky Meynen and Martin Doornbos, Decentralising natural resource management: a recipe for sustainability and equity? (August) Arjun S. Bedi, Paul Kimalu, Mwangi S. Kimenyi e.o., User charges and utilisation of health services in Kenya (August) Des Gasper, Studying aid: some methods (September)

Development and Change The journal Development and Change is published five times a year by Blackwell Publishers (Oxford, UK) on behalf of the Institute of Social Studies. For more information, see the ISS website or email us at d&c@iss.nl.

Available online at http://www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/online

Volume 34 / Number 5 / November 2003 Keith Griffin

Economic Globalization and Institutions of Global Governance

Eileen Stillwaggon

Racial Metaphors: Interpreting Sex and AIDS in Africa

Mara Goldman

Partitioned Nature, Privileged Knowledge: Community-based Conservation in Tanzania

Jim Igoe

Scaling up Civil Society: Donor Money, NGOs and the Pastoralist Land Rights Movement in Tanzania

Frank Hirtz

It Takes Modern Means to be Traditional: On Recognizing Indigenous Cultural Communities in the Philippines

Sanjib Baruah

Nationalizing Space: Cosmetic Federalism and the Politics of Development in Northeast India

Andrew Walker

Agricultural Transformation and the Politics of Hydrology in Northern Thailand

Volume 35 / Number 1 / January 2004 Enrique Delamonica, Santosh Mehrotra and Jan Vandermoortele

Education for All: How Much Will It Cost?

Richard Batley

The Politics of Reforming Service Delivery

Rebecca M. Klenk

‘Who is the Developed Woman?’ Women as a Category of Development Discourse, Kumaon, India

Emma Mawdsley

India’s Middle Classes and the Environment Pastoralism and Sustainable Livelihoods in Mongolia

Robin Mearns

Sustaining Livelihoods on Mongolia’s Pastoral Commons: Insights from a Participatory Poverty Assessment

Maria E. FernandezGimenez and B. Batbuyan

Law and Disorder: Local Implementation of Mongolia’s Land Law

Donald J. Bedunah and Sabine M. Schmidt

Pastoralism and Protected Area Management in Mongolia’s Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park

Colofon Development ISSues is published three times a year by: Institute of Social Studies PO Box 29776, 2502 LT The Hague, The Netherlands, Tel: +31 (0)70 4260 443 or 4260 419, Fax: + 31 (0)70 4260 799, ISS website: www.iss.nl, Email: DevISSues@iss.nl Editors René Bekius, Andy Brown Editorial Board Karin Arts, Erhard Berner, Kristin Komives, Sandra Nijhof, Peter de Valk, Emily Clare Wilkinson (Scholas) Editorial assistants Karen Shaw, Marie-Louise Gambon Photos Unless otherwise stated, all photographs are by courtesy of Jager & Krijger Design and Production MUNTZ Marketing Communication Group Circulation: 11,000.

Material from Development ISSues may be reproduced or adapted without permission, provided it is not distributed for profit and is attributed to the original author or authors, Development ISSues and the Institute of Social Studies. ISSN: 1566-4821.