Growth or Development

What do we need as opposed to what is necessary? Is it growth or is it development? Does this two collide at some point or can pursuit of one result in the demise of the other? Is growth and development an altruistic venture designed for the good of the people by a minority elite? Who earns the right to determine what growth should happen and what pathway development should follow?

While this may look like a ridiculous question yet its significance to the plight of peoples' across the globe may never be properly evaluated or recorded. Most government pursue growth and call it development leading to deteriorating social values that revolves like a wild storm resulting in the ultimate destruction often called a melt down or depression.

A government that invest in "industrial growth and economic growth" without proper impact assessment and investment in fundamental values of respect and social justice just builds high-rises on a muddy foundation-give it a few years of glory at the best.

There is the frazzling pressure on governments to deliver, so we see a rush to set up direct foreign investment, enact laws for conducive business environment and often overlook Human Right issues that accompany this rush. Local communities are opened up to complexities beyond them and beyond the next generation. The speed means people are bulldozed into believing is for their own good or too  frazzled to ask the right questions. Without creating an environment of oversight and social audit, the culture of impunity is gradually built over time to the level it becomes the norm rather than the exception. We should be particularly disturbed when impunity resides and grows daily within the private sector. This means social values and social justice have been blown away with the wind of growth.

Fast growth that says sharp business practises are alright ought to be debunked and strongly campaigned against both by government and civil society.  Growth that will build a society that actually cares less about the survival of the society and reinforcement of its positive values should be seen as an opposing force that would only ultimately uproot society and create an alien hostile environment for coexistence.

So we need to look around and interrogate each new policy, proposition, and trend. Asking what would be the impact, who would it impact and what changes does it herald. Ask questions, is your Right to Development.

Introducing the Right to Development: A Right every individual has a right to know about

There is a right to development distinct from other human rights yet encompasses all human rights

The right to development was first recognized and made a legal right in 1981 in the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Right, a regional human right instrument. Article 22 states that:

       "1. All peoples shall have the right to their economic, social and cultural development with due regard to their freedom and identity and in equal enjoyment of common heritage of mankind. 2. States shall have the duty, individually or collectively, to ensure the exercise of the right to development."

The United Nations General Assembly in 1986 adopted the Declaration on the Right to Development by resolution 41/128 of December 1986. Article 1, paragraph 1 of the Declaration states that:

         "The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized."

http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/41/a41r128.htm

The general principles in the Declaration recognizes that development is a comprehensive economic, social, cultural and political process aimed towards the constant improvement of the well-being of the entire population and individuals on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation. Any process that violates, denies or hinders human rights is an obstacle to development. According to the Declaration, the human person is the central subject of the development process , therefore development policies should make the human being the main participant and beneficiary of the development process.

According to the August 2000 report of the independent expert on the right to development, Arjun Sengupta, Article 1 of the Declaration embodies three main principles that focuses on inalienability, particular process of development that respects the realization of all human rights and entitlement to participate:

a) There is an inalienable human right that is called the right to development 
b) There is a particular process of economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized; and

c) The right to development is a human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to and enjoy that particular process of development.

This blog is developed to follow the process of development around the world and in Nigeria in particular and to relate the processes and events to this Declaration.