A Human Rights Approach to Localising The MDGs Through Gender-Equitable Local Development

Ron McGill

doi:10.5130/cjlg.v0i4.1357

PDF

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/cjlg.v0i4.1357

Ron McGill

Ministry of Finance and Economic Development

Abstract

Until now, the United Nations Capital Development Fund’s (UNCDF) Gender Equitable Local Development (GELD) programme has not been presented within an explicit human rights framework. This is strange given that the human rights based approach to development (HRBAD) aims to ensure that all human beings can live their lives fully and with dignity. HRBAD is fundamentally about the healthy and full development of individuals and communities. In addition, one of human rights’ central concerns is that people have equal access to the benefits of society. Initiatives to realize human rights therefore give priority to the most marginalized - the poorest - in a society. It is those individuals who have most difficulty in securing the basics that are essential to living their lives with dignity. Women in all communities are disproportionately represented among the poor. Thus, human rights have gender equity as a central focus. Put another way, we are dealing with the feminization of poverty. We are dealing with the concept of equal access (to development). In short, we are dealing with those who need (and deserve) greater priority in access to infrastructure and supporting services in order to reach a point of equality.

How to Cite

McGill, R. (1). A Human Rights Approach to Localising The MDGs Through Gender-Equitable Local Development. Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance, (4), 77-100. https://doi.org/10.5130/cjlg.v0i4.1357

Issue

Issue 4 2009

Section

Commentary

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright Notice

Authors who submit articles to this journal from 31st March 2014 for publication, agree to the following terms:

a) Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share and adapt the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

b) Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

c) Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Open Access Citation Advantage Service). Where authors include such a work in an institutional repository or on their website (ie. a copy of a work which has been published in a UTS ePRESS journal, or a pre-print or post-print version of that work), we request that they include a statement that acknowledges the UTS ePRESS publication including the name of the journal, the volume number and a web-link to the journal item.

d) Authors should be aware that the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License permits readers to share (copy and redistribute the work in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the work) for any purpose, even commercially, provided they also give appropriate credit to the work, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do these things in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests you or your publisher endorses their use.

For Issue 13/14, and all issues before, the following copyright applied:

Authors submitting a paper to UTS ePRESS publications agree to assign a limited license to UTS ePRESS if and when the manuscript is accepted for publication. This license allows UTS ePRESS to publish a manuscript in a given issue. Articles published by UTS ePRESS are protected by copyright which is retained by the authors who assert their moral rights. Authors control translation and reproduction rights to their works published by UTS ePRESS. UTS ePRESS publications are copyright and all rights are reserved worldwide. Downloads of specific portions of them are permitted for personal use only, not for commercial use or resale. Permissions to reprint or use any materials should be directed to UTS ePRESS via the journal's main editor, Alison Brown, journal@clgf.org.uk

Author Biography

Ron McGill, Ministry of Finance and Economic Development

Ron McGill is the performance budget adviser to Ethiopia’s Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. He was formerly a senior technical adviser in the United Nations Capital Development Fund in New York (8 years). Previously, he worked on residential assignments in Tanzania (government reform; 3 years) and Malawi (city management; 5 years). He started his career in British local government, in town planning and urban poverty (14 years). He published ‘Institutional Development’ in 1996 (an edited version of his Strathclyde PhD) and ‘Achieving Results’ a decade later (through his action research in UNCDF). He has 17 other articles to credit. Future interests centre on transformational leadership through process consulting (see e.g. Civil service reform in Tanzania: organisation and efficiency through process consulting. International Journal of Public Sector Management (1999), Vol. 12, No. 5, pp. 410-419) and the establishment of a European centre to achieve that ambition.

Article Sidebar

Main Article Content

Abstract

Article Details

Ron McGill, Ministry of Finance and Economic Development