Resources

The seminar report highlights the major themes that emerged from the presentations and discussions and outlines key principles that need to guide recommendations for service delivery. The report concludes by offering general recommendations to NGOs at national, regional and international levels.

This IDS Source Pack aims to give an introduction to micro-finance and micro-enterprise and provide a comprehensive listing of other good sources of information on the subject. An introductory article by Christian Sorenson gives an overview of the subject. This is followed by some readings which include: a look at how to identify the poorest clients around the world; details of how participatory monitoring and evaluation can strengthen a street youth micro-entrepreneurs programme in the Dominican Republic; and information about the work of a rural women's bank in India. The last section gives details of around twenty recommended materials on micro-finance.

This paper analyses the role of civil society in advocating for the adoption of the Bill on the Right to Education in India. The author argues that recent successes in civil society mobilisation could form a good basis to implementing the right to education with the active collaboration and participation of the Indian government. Thus she demonstrates how civil societyûgovernment collaborative approaches have been able to tackle child labour and contribute to increasing access to educational opportunities for girls. In doing so, the author recommends: that there be an increase in sensitisation, mentoring, awareness-building, and in developing the participatory governance capacities of rights-unaware communities, while mobilising the masses to achieve reforms through advocacy; that there be a requirement for state bureaucracy to train staff in reforming legal and regulatory frameworks, and implementation systems; that at the local level designing methods of participation that incorporate new bargaining tools e.g. Public Interest Litigation (PIL); and working with women in æpositions of powerÆ as potential agents and champions of change. Some of the observations that have been made in the interim period following the passing of the Right to Education Bill include: a call from representatives from civil society to government to set up a 'National Commission on Education' comprised of experts, which would ensure a participation through involving civil society actors as an integral component in any planning and delivery to ensure implementation of the Constitutional provision; and the formation of state-level networks of civil-society organisations several Indian states to lobby the state governments to implement the principles of the Bill on the ground.

Este paquete de información sirve para dar una introducción al género y ciudadanía. Contiene tres documentos: un informe general, una colección de recursos de apoyo, y el Boletín de Bridge, EnBreve, edición 14 sobre género y ciudadanía. El informe examina la importancia de ciudadanía y género en la teoría y la práctica del desarrollo. Discute los discusiones dominantes en la literatura sobre género y ciudadanía y procura ilustrar cómo mirar la ciudadanía de una perspectiva del género puede introducir las derechas más amplias y la participación política como metas del desarrollo. También subraya cómo entendiendo las maneras en que diversos grupos definen y experimentan la ciudadanía puede permitir a agentes del desarrollo y a los ciudadanos con cuales trabajan para hacer tales derechas y la participación una realidad. La colección de recursos de apoyo se compone de resúmenes de textos claves, estudios de caso, herramientas, pautas y otros materiales referente al género y ciudadanía. Además, se incluyen detalles sobre contactos y enlaces para recursos en Internet. El boletín mira las maneras de trabajar con ideas de la ciudadanía puede ayudar a promover igualdad del género. Un procedimiento al desarrollo que empieza con la perspectiva de la gente como los ciudadanos puede permitir a agentes del desarrollo de apoyar a luchas de derechos y participación en la toma de decisiones para aquellos marginados en base de género. Esto implica re-enmarcar las derechas y responsabilidades de la ciudadanía para incluir las necesidades de mujeres y de asegurar su acceso a la política y a las instituciones. Los estudios y los artículos de caso incluyen experiencias de Egipto, de Bangladesh, de México, de Namibia, de la India, del Brasil, de México, de Sudáfrica y de Rwanda.

The recent 'rise of rights' has sparked much critical reflection, one of the key concerns being 'What is different this time'?. Can this emerging focus on rights within development help bring about favourable changes for poor and marginalised people?

This issue of the IDS Bulletin addresses diverse perspectives and questions across a spectrum of current thinking, policy and practice. Why the rights-based approach and why now? Whose rights count? 'Rights' work has evolved from an historical focus on human rights violations and concern for legal protection, but its future depends on direct engagement with civil society causes.

Development needs rights as much as rights need development. Illustrated here are struggles for rights within specific contexts (tenants associations in Kenya; children's organisations in India): the perspective of marginalised groups alters how formal rights are given meaning. Using rights in practice is challenging and filled with contradictions and tensions. The struggle for rights is happening and it is not simply an agenda of the powerful.

What emerges from this IDS Bulletin is a vibrant picture of often diverse meanings and strategies pursued throughout the world. If the current enthusiasm for rights in development can open thinking spaces and result in appropriate action, rather than serving as a one-size-fits-all export, then rights bases approaches are to be welcomed. Moving beyond old debates and recognising that rights must be claimed and realised by real people, the development community can discover what rights will ultimately mean in context and practice.

Table of contents

• Introduction: Developing Rights: Discourse to Context and Practice (pdf), Jethro Pettit and Joanna Wheeler
• 'Why Rights, Why Now? Reflections on the Rise of Rights in International Development Discourse', Andrea Cornwall and Celestine Nyamu-Musembi
• 'Rights-based Approaches and Bilateral Aid Agencies: More Than a Metaphor?', Laure-Hélène Piron
• 'Rights-based Development: Linking Rights and Participation - Challenges in Thinking and Action', Valerie Miller, Lisa VeneKlasen and Cindy Clark
• 'An Actor-oriented Approach to Rights in Development', Celestine Nyamu-Musembi
• 'Rights-based Approaches: Recovering Past Innovations', Valerie Miller, Lisa VeneKlasen and Cindy Clark
• 'Rights and Power: The Challenge for International Development Agencies', Alexandra Hughes, Joanna Wheeler and Rosalnd Eyben
• 'Can a Rights-based Approach Help in Achieving the Millennium Development Goals?', Salil Shetty
• 'Living Rights: Reflections from Women's Movements About Gender and Rights in Practice', Cindy Clark, Molly Reilly and Joanna Wheeler
• 'Small Hands, Big Voices? Children's Participation in Policy Change in India', Emma Williams
• 'Operationalising the Rights Agenda: Participatory Rights Assessment in Peru and Malawi', James Blackburn, Mary Ann Brocklesby, Sheena Crawford and Jeremy Holland
• 'Defining Rights from the Roots: Insights from Council Tenants' Struggles in Mombasa, Kenya', Samuel Musyoki and Celestine Nyamu-Musembi
• 'Rights and Citizenship in Brazil: The Challenges for Civil Society, Almir Pereira Júnior, Jorge Romano and Marta Antunes
• 'Beyond Approaches and Models: Reflections on Rights and Social Movements in Kenya, Haiti and the Philippines', Mwambi Mwasaru
• 'Transforming Rights into Social Practices? The Landless Movement and Land Reform in Brazil', Zander Navarro

This paper report a workshop of a child health programme in Honduras. Previous attempts to keep health diaries to record illness, and how illness was treated within families and communities had failed. Workshop participants were rural illiterate women. The aim of the workshop was to take a case history of children under five years and to record both illness and developmental milestones over the previous 12 months. The women were first asked to draw pictures to represent each month of the year. Below each picture they were asked to draw what happened to their child during that month. This was followed by a discussion to explain the drawings. The paper discusses some of the problems the women had in drawing these calendars, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the technique. One of the strengths is that the technique enables the women to explore patterns of illness and analyse them, drawing on the knowledge acquired by their participation in the programme.