MDGs and Human Rights

The achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are indication of and a necessity for the realization of human rights, because the MDGs correspond to the strong link between human rights and development has figured prominently in United Nations deliberations of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration on the Right to Development 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."

Moreover, many countries have also ratified the UN declaration and have additional safeguards for human rights with their national constitution. In India, existing human rights obligations found in the directive principles of state policy of the Indian Constitution. 

 

The UN Agencies have developed a “Common Understanding” which states that all its development cooperation should further the realisation of human rights as laid down in international human rights instruments and that development cooperation contributes to the development of the capacities of duty-bearers to meet their obligations and/or of rights-holders to claim their rights.[1]

 

Toward these ends the government has used two fold strategy, namely (a) Remedial measures and safeguards against discrimination in various spheres and (b) developmental and empowering measures, particularly in economic spheres. Remedial Measures against discrimination includeenactment of Anti-untouchability act of 1955 (renamed as protection of Civil rights Act in 1979) and Schedule Caste/Tribe Prevention of Atrocities Act 1989 under which practice of untouchability and discrimination in public places and community life is treated as an offence. The second Act provides legal protection to the SC/ST against violence and atrocities by the high castes.

The ‘development is a human right’ approach leads to an understanding of caste equality based on empowerment and the realization of dalits’s human rights. This approach questions the socio, economic and political architecture into which caste and development thinking has tried to integrate Dalits. It calls for both a change in structural inequalities between groups, and a response to basic needs. Addressing groups equality mainstreaming Dalits is a method for achieving this approach when it is aimed at achieving group equality and when it is defined and applied as both mainstreaming of group analysis in all policy decisions and taking actions to address specific barriers to dalit’s empowerment. The critical contribution of the empowerment approach is its emphasis on participation and its commitment to a socio-economic transformation agenda that challenges all forms of oppression and domination, from the personal to the international, from the political to the economic.

 

The present exercise builds on and complements from the human rights framework and achieving MDGs. The review presented here focuses on state core obligations and related to MDGs.   States’ core obligations underlined in the Directive Principles of State Policy (Article 46) of Indian Constitution roughly line up with the MDGs:

DPSP – Directive Principles of State Policy

 

 

In September 2000, heads of   state and representatives of the Government of 191 countries met at the United Nations and adopted the Millennium Declaration. The Declaration outlines the central concerns of the global community – peace, security, development, human rights, democracy and environmental sustainability – and articulates a set of inter-connected and mutually reinforcing goals, which includes eight broad global agenda of human development popularly known as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

 

The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), issued by the UN Secretary General in 2001, are a “road map” for implementing the Millennium Declaration. By the year 2015, all 191 United Nations Member States including India have pledged to meet the MDGs

 

The MDGs comprise eight goals. They are:

 

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

 

2. Achieve universal primary education

 

3. Promote gender equality and women’s empowerment

 

4. Reduce child mortality

 

5. Improve maternal health

 

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

 

7. Ensure environmental sustainability

 

8. Develop a global partnership for development

 

Quantitative targets have been defined for each goal, most of which are to be achieved by 2015. Indicators have been selected to monitor progress on each the targets. A list of 18 targets and 48 indicators has been agreed upon to comparability across countries and facilitate tracking of progress at global, regional and national levels (see annex 1). In preparing national level MDG Report, each country has the flexibility to set its won targets, which are, capture the specific features of the economy.

 

 

In response to the UN Millennium Declaration, the Government of India in its Tenth Five Year Plan has outlined national development goals (known as India’s Human Development Goals) and monitorable targets for the tenth plan and beyond. Most of these are related to the Millennium Development Goals.

 

1. Reduction of poverty ratio by 5 percentage points by 2007 and by 15-percentage point by 2012;

 

2. Providing gainful and high-quality employment at least to the addition to the labour force over the tenth plan period;

 

3. All children in school by 2003; all children to complete 5 years of schooling by 2007;

 

4. Reduction in gender gaps in literacy and wage rates by at least 50 percent by 2007;

 

5. Reduction in the decadal rate of population growth between 2001 and 2011 to 16.2 percent;

 

6. Increase in Literacy Rates to 75 per cent within the tenth plan period (2002-3 to 2006-7);

 

7. Reduction of Infant mortality rate (IMR) to 45 per 1000 live births by 2007 and to 28 by 2012;

 

8. Reduction of Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) to 2 per 1000 live births by 2007 and to 1 by 2012;

 

9. Increase in forest and tree cover to 25 per cent by 2007 and 33 per cent by 2012;

 

10. All villages to have sustained access to potable drinking water within the Plan period;

 

11. Cleaning of all major polluted rivers by 2007 and other notified stretches by 2012;

 

12. HIV/AIDS targets within the Tenth Plan period:

·        80% coverage of high risk groups through targeted interventions; 

·        90% coverage of schools and colleges through education programmes;

·         80% awareness among the general population in rural areas;

·        reducing transmission through blood to less than 1%;

·        establishing of at least one voluntary testing and counseling centre in every district;

·        scaling up of prevention of mother-to-child transmission activities up to the district level;

·        achieving zero level increase of HIV /AIDS prevalence by 2007)

 

13. Malaria targets within the Tenth Plan period

·        ABER (Annual Blood Examination Rate) over 10 percent;

·        API (Annual Parasite Incidence) 1.3 or less;

·        25% reduction in morbidity and mortality due to malaria by 2007 and 50% by 2010 (NHP 2002)

 

 

S.No.	Goals/Indicators	Present status
		SC	ST	Others	ALL
	1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
1	Proportion of people living in poverty	36.67	44.80	21.17	26.26
2	Proportion of undernourished children	54	56	44	47
3	Proportion of person employed in
	agriculture as cultivator	27	54	47	43
	non-agriculture	27	16	32	25
4	Average Monthly Consumption Expenditure	419	388	525	486
5	Share in agriculture land proportion to their pop	10 (16)	12 (8)	78 (76)	Na (100)
2. Achieve universal primary education
6	Gross enrolment rate – class I-VIII (6-14 yrs)	86	88	-	81.58
7	Literacy rate (general)	55	47	69	65
8	Literacy rate (15+ year old)	28	22	54	44
9	Net enrolment rate (at primary level)	na	na	na	na
10	Primary school within their habitation	64.27	na	na	na
11	Percent of school teacher	8.99	5.74	25.78	13.5
3. Promote gender equality (data building under progress
4. Reduce child mortality
12	Infant Mortality Rate	83	84	68	73
13	Under-five mortality rate	119	127	92	101
14	Percent of children immunized	40	26	45	42
15	Percent of Institutional deliveries	26	17	38	34
5. Improve maternal health
16	Maternal Mortality Rate
17	Medical Assistance during delivery	36.8	23	47	42
18	Vaccination of Mothers	57.6	42.2	na	56
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
	Data not available
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
19	Percent of hhs have access to safe water	81	61	79	78
20	Percent of hhs have access to electricity	43	37	61	56
21	Percent of hhs have access to toilet facility	24	17	43	36
	8. Develop a global partnership for development
	Data not available
Source: Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi (compiled from various sources)

 

 

Table 1 presents detailed indicators related to MDGs by social groups at all-India level. Began with the first goal, to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, we have taken all exiting variables which are significantly affect poverty to analysis the fist goal.

 

In 2000, the proportion of people belongs to socially disadvantaged groups (SCs and STs) living below poverty line was about 45 percent and 37 percent as compared with 21 percent among the Others (Non SC/STs). Compared with the Non SC/STs, the incidence of aggregate poverty was seventy percent, and about hundred percent higher among the SCs, and the STs respectively.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GOALS AND TARGETS from the Millennium Declaration	HUMAN RIGHTS Articles from CEDAW & ICESCR [Right to …]	HUMAN RIGHTS Articles from the CI-DPSP [Right to …]
GOAL 1: ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY AND HUNGER
Target 1: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day.	(11.1) work (11.1.e) social security (13.a) right to financial credit (14) rights of rural women (15) equal rights in respect of contracts and property (16) prohibition of early and forced marriage [on the basis that EFM is often linked to and contributes to women’s poverty] (16) equality in marriage regarding property rights [on the basis that inequality in inheritance and land rights are linked to women’s poverty]	Article 46 of the Indian Constitution, DPSP-states that: The State shall promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people, and, in particular, of the SC and the STs, and shall protect them from all social injustice and all forms of exploitation Article14 equality before the law; Article16(4) equality of opportunity; Article 17 abolition of untouchability   Articles 23 & 24 prohibition of forced labour and child labour
Target 2: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.	(2) elimination of discrimination by any person (5) social and cultural patterns of conduct [regarding practices in some countries of women and girl children eating last and least]	Under CI-DPSP Article 47 regard to raising of the level of nutrition and standard of living of people
GOAL 2: ACHIEVE UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION
Target 3: Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.	(10) equal rights education (14.2.d) rural women’s rights to obtain training and education	Article15 (4) to equal educational opportunity for the SCs & STs
GOAL 3: PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWER WOMEN
Target 4: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015. * Articles related to the indicators and to broader goal are included here because the target represents an unacceptable reduction of women’s empowerment to the education of girls.	The whole Convention is about empowerment of women, but note in particular: (2) policy of eliminating discrimination (3) measures to ensure full development and advancement of women on basis of equality with men (5) modify social and cultural patterns of conduct (10) education (7), (8) participation in political and public life, at national and international levels (6) suppress trafficking and exploitation of women (General Recommendation 19) protect women from all forms of violence, as VAW is a form of discrimination
GOAL 4: REDUCE CHILD MORTALITY