Loud Thinking

Archive for July, 2013

“It’s better to be an optimist who is sometimes wrong than a
pessimist who is always right.”

— Author Unknown

“It’s not what enters men’s mouths that’s evil. It’s what comes out of their mouths that is.”

Class-And-Grace is simple elegance of movement and thought.

“To bear defeat with dignity, to accept criticism with poise, to receive honors with humility — these are marks of maturity and graciousness.”

William Arthur Ward (1921-1994);
author, educator, motivational speaker

A Human Rights Watch Report worth reading

World Bank: Ducking Human Rights Issues
Billions for Development, but Lack of Safeguards Undermines Benefits

A detainee in a government-run drug detention center in Vietnam. People in drug detention centers in Vietnam are held without due process for years, forced to work for little or no pay, and suffer torture and physical violence. The World Bank provided funding for various HIV-related services in Vietnamese drug detention centers through a project that concluded in 2012.
© 2011 Private
OUR REPORT:

Abuse-Free Development
How the World Bank Should Safeguard Against Human Rights Violations
JULY 22, 2013
GET THE REPORT:
Download the full report
GO TO REPORT HOME »
RELATED MATERIALS:
Joint Letter and Submission to President Kim Re. World Bank Safeguards Review
DECEMBER 20, 2012 Letter
Letter to President Kim Re. a Human Rights Agenda for the World Bank
APRIL 19, 2013 Letter
World Bank: Uphold Rights to End Poverty, Economic Exclusion
APRIL 19, 2013 Press release
World Bank: Commit to Rights in 2030 Vision
APRIL 19, 2013 Press release
What’s ‘Development’ With Rights Abuses Along the Way?
MAY 14, 2013 Commentary
MORE COVERAGE:
Watch the Video “World Bank: Ducking Human Rights Issues”
The World Bank pays tens of billions of dollars every year to support development efforts around the world. But it needs to stop undermining its efforts by making sure it isn’t contributing to human rights abuses.
Jessica Evans, senior advocate on international financial institutions
(Washington, DC) – The World Bank has closed its eyes to risks to the human rights of the very people it seeks to benefit, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The bank lacks adequate checks to guard against funding human rights abuse. The bank’s board will meet as part of its ongoing policy review, which provides an opportunity to remedy this policy gap, in Washington on July 23, 2013.

The 59-page report, “Abuse-Free Development: How the World Bank Should Safeguard Against Human Rights Violations,” draws on Human Rights Watch research from around the globe to document the harm caused to some of the world’s most vulnerable people by bank-financed programs. Human Rights Watch drew on three case studies, one from Vietnam and two from Ethiopia, to illustrate how the bank neither acknowledged the human rights risks of the programs it financed nor took steps to mitigate the problems.

“The World Bank pays tens of billions of dollars every year to support development efforts around the world,” said Jessica Evans, senior advocate on international financial institutions at Human Rights Watch. “But it needs to stop undermining its efforts by making sure it isn’t contributing to human rights abuses.”

The World Bank’s recently adopted goals to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity are inextricably linked to the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food, water, and housing, Human Rights Watch said. But the bank cannot meaningfully achieve these goals in complex environments without ensuring that it respects the rights of the people it is working to benefit.

The World Bank’s two year review and update of its safeguard policies, which began in October 2012, provides an opportunity for the bank to create a due diligence framework that will enable it to identify the human rights impacts of its activities. Such a framework would help the bank take measures to mitigate negative impacts, maximize positive impacts, and avoid financing projects and programs that will contribute to, or exacerbate, human rights violations. The World Bank should make human rights law a key component of its development manifesto.

In several cases, the World Bank has neither acknowledged nor mitigated human rights risks in its programs, Human Rights Watch found. As a result, for example, in Vietnam, the World Bank has funded programs in government drug detention centers in which Human Rights Watch has documented arbitrary detention, forced labor, torture, and other forms of ill-treatment.

In Ethiopia, the World Bank did not work to avoid the risks that the government’s quashing of free speech, denial of basic services to perceived or real political opponents, or forcible relocation program presented for its programs.

Through a US$2 billion project, the World Bank is working to support education, health, water, sanitation, rural roads, and agricultural extension services in Ethiopia. Some staff members contend that by contributing to developing these services, this project benefits human rights. But in Ethiopia’s western Gambella region, the main vehicle for achieving development objectives, including those envisioned under this World Bank project, is a program that not only fails to further such rights, it tramples on them, Human Rights Watch found.

Known as “villagization,” the government initiative is relocating 1.5 million indigenous and other marginalized people to new villages, where the better services and infrastructure the government promises is often a fiction. Villagization has been marred by violence.

One 20-year-old man who escaped to South Sudan told Human Rights Watch, “Soldiers came and asked me why I refused to be relocated.… They started beating me until my hands were broken.… I ran to tell [my father] what had happened, but the soldiers followed me. My father and I ran away.… I heard the sound of gunfire.”

Forced to separate from his father, he kept running and hid from the soldiers in nearby bushes. When he returned the next day, he learned that his father had been killed.

The World Bank should make a commitment both to respect and to protect human rights, Human Rights Watch said. That should include ensuring that it does not exacerbate or contribute to human rights violations through its lending or other activities. The World Bank should carry out systematic due diligence to make sure that it honors its commitment.

Had it taken such steps with projects it is implementing in regions where the Ethiopian government was carrying out villagization, for example, the bank would have been aware of the risks of arbitrary arrests and detention, forced evictions, beatings, torture, and killings. It would also have identified the potential for reduced and inadequate access to food, health care, and water in the places where the villagers were being moved. The bank could have built measures to avoid these risks into its project design.

“Human rights due diligence is not about naming and shaming governments in need of development funds,” Evans said. “It is the process of looking at the effect of the World Bank’s lending or other support on human rights, and figuring out how to avoid or mitigate human rights risks.”

As they currently stand, the World Bank’s safeguard policies are insufficient to ensure that human rights are respected in its projects. While the bank has committed not to finance project activities that would contravene borrower country obligations under relevant international environmental treaties and agreements, it is silent on obligations under international human rights treaties. The bank has policies on involuntary resettlement and indigenous peoples, but even these policies fall short of international human rights standards. Funding decisions relating to rights concerns lack transparency and appear arbitrary and inconsistent, Human Rights Watch found.

The absence of a clear commitment not to support activities that will contribute to or exacerbate human rights violations leaves staff without guidance on how they should approach human rights concerns, or what their responsibilities are. Staff members have unfettered discretion to determine the extent to which they will consider human rights risks, take measures to mitigate or avoid harm, and even to bring problems to the attention of senior management or the board. The lack of clear procedures and policies on human rights means that people whose rights are adversely affected have no way to hold the bank to account.

By adopting a human-rights-conscious approach, the World Bank can minimize avoidable suffering, especially among marginalized, excluded, and vulnerable groups, making its development efforts more sustainable. By supporting governments in meeting their human rights obligations, the bank can advance consistency in government policy. Reducing human rights risks also can help to mitigate legal and financial risks, and potential harm to the bank’s reputation.

The World Bank needs to improve the human rights standards it sets for itself, to meet its legal obligations and to remain a leading development institution, Human Rights Watch said. Member countries have similar and additional specific human rights obligations, which they retain while they are members of the bank and as they sit on the bank’s Board of Executive Directors, which approves bank projects.

The World Bank should amend its safeguard policies to:

Commit not to support any activities that will contribute to or exacerbate human rights violations, and to respect international human rights in all activities, irrespective of the funding mechanism utilized.
Undertake due diligence to honor this commitment, including by undertaking human rights impact assessments to identify the human rights impacts of its activities and avoid or mitigate adverse impacts. The bank can also use such impact assessments to maximize positive human rights impacts of its activities, consistent with its poverty alleviation mandate.
Enhance existing safeguards to meet international human rights standards, including updating the indigenous peoples and involuntary resettlement policies to meet the standards set out in relevant human rights treaties, declarations, and documents from treaty bodies and UN special rapporteurs interpreting these obligations.
Ensure that it does not discriminate against people on any grounds prohibited by international law, and that all members of affected communities have the opportunity to meaningfully participate in shaping development agendas and policies, during all stages of projects or programs.
“At one time, the World Bank said that its nonpolitical mandate precluded it from even considering human rights in its funding decisions,” Evans said. “Now the bank accepts that it can consider human rights, but views that as discretionary. It is high time that the World Bank recognized that universal human rights are not discretionary.”

Improve Communication with Your Virtual Coworkers

When interacting with colleagues who work remotely, even the simplest gesture can be misinterpreted in the absence of the usual visual cues. Here are three ways to make sure you’re understood when you’re not face-to-face:

Picture your colleague. When emailing or calling him, try to imagine your coworker at his desk listening to you. This visualization will increase your empathy and improve your chances of clearly saying what you mean.

Spell things out. Don’t just say, “Circle back with me,” for example. Be clear about follow up. Do you expect a phone call or an email? When?

Respond promptly. When you don’t reply right away to an email or voicemail, you leave the person wondering whether you value the relationship or not. Answer quickly, even just to say you’ll send a more complete answer later.

Adapted by HBR from “How to Avoid Virtual Miscommunication” by Keith Ferrazzi.

“Wellness isn’t about deprivation and it’s not about
perfection. It is about pointing yourself in the direction of
growth, training yourself to get comfortable with your highest
potential, and then taking small steps to support that shift.
It’s about showing up for yourself, day by day, and then one day finding that you’ve undergone a transformation.”

— Kathy Freston

Business as usual will no more deliver in Pakistan

After 66 years, Pakistan is a more fragmented society than our forefathers could have ever imagined. The schism is so intense that if immediate corrective steps are not taken, God forbid, this country may see even more turbulent times.

The writing on the wall is clear for all to read. The decadence of Pakistani society in every sphere of life, be it political, economic, educational, industrial, agricultural, religious, law and order or any other segment worth naming, is abysmal, to say the least. Hardly any day passes without reports of suicides committed by the poor due to economic hardships. Children are not dying in dozens but in scores due to the measles outbreak and, strangely enough, no soul has moved and not even a single person has been held accountable.

Maybe we have one last chance to stem the rot, to unite the people and to give them a prescription to rise again and build the nation from the ashes because, for the overwhelming majority, a time is coming that they will be forced to think: no life no nation.

The current frame work under which the country is being run will not take Pakistan any forward, even if it is allowed to continue, for another 100 years. All small and big nations in our region and the world have overtaken us, in the basic fields of health, education, justice, law and order and food security.

All stakeholders must wake up, as the nation is moving towards destruction and business as usual can do no good for Pakistan; our survival is directly linked with the existence of our nationhood. Nationhood means, “the state or quality of having a status as a separate and independent nation”.

Pakistan needs a turnaround for which the basic need is our adaptation and readiness for the change, not in cosmetic but real sense. We need a complete change from one era to another like one witnessed by China under Mao Zedong.

Hence, for all Pakistanis, failure is not an option but success is also not automatically guaranteed. In this regard, I would like to suggest that we formulate a new social contract for the common people of Pakistan, who always pay 100 percent bills and taxes and never defaults on their bank loans. Let us make a new Pakistan, which is redesigned to practically cater to the needs of the exploited masses.

Changes must be made in the constitution to block corrupt landowners and power hungry charlatans from contesting the elections. The election system should also be changed so that the whole country directly votes for a president or a prime minister. However, before voting, the candidates of all political parties for this post, must notify a list of their MPAs, MNAs and Senators, who will be automatically considered elected, according to the percentage of votes cast, in favour of the main candidate for the top post of the country.

The decision for Pakistan’s charter of development for building dams and mega projects for the next 50 years should also be finalised, on which later on, no politics should be allowed. In other words, the representatives of the nation should decide now where they would like to see Pakistan in each and every field of life after 50 years. This plan should be further divided into ten five years plans.

In order to decentralise and empower the maximum number of people, to enjoy the fruits of self-rule, we should convert every division of Pakistan into a province. This will also work as a panacea for the eradication of linguistic and any other type of frictions and doubts about the hegemony of the people. from certain large areas over the people of other smaller areas. In fact, it will work wonders in the speedy development and unity of Pakistan and kill instantly, any secessionist or separatist activities, currently prevailing in some parts of the country.

Syed Nayyar Uddin Ahmad
Lahore.

Energy Crisis and its Immediate Remedies : BOP Solar Loans Mark Up of 17% is a Joke and Humiliation of the Public

Honourable Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif Sahab,

Salaam.

You may be aware that the electricity load shedding has brought the country to the brink of the abyss. The writing on the wall is there for everybody to read and take immediate, repeat immediate, drastic and emergent steps, before the situation explodes to a point of no return. In fact, the country has now reached a defining moment.

In this regard, now as all powerful Prime Minister, it is high time that you may take personal charge of the looming crisis.

For your consideration, I take this opportunity to submit the following proposals to stem the rot of the current electricity crisis of Pakistan.

1. Impose total country-wide ban on use of air-conditioners in all official, public and private offices and residences ( which includes the offices and residences of the President, P.M, Governors, C.M’s and state guest houses with no exceptions, even for the foreign guests). We should not forget that in 60’s Indian government imposed a nation-wide ban on serving of dinner, to meet the severe food shortage.

2. Order, closure (strictly) of all shops and offices after 6 P.M. Remember, every Watt saved is Watt generated.

3. Order prohibition of every type of decorative lighting in the country.

4. All TV channel transmissions and cable services must be ordered to be closed at 9 P.M. through out the country.

5. The services of Police, Rangers, F.C and Armed Forces may be acquired to detect and permanently disconnect, the electricity connection of all those premises, who are getting electricity through illegal means. These premises, under no circumstances, be allowed electricity connection in future. Remember, there is more than 30% (latest NEPRA losses figures are at 40%) electricity theft in the country and civilian agencies can never overcome this problem.

6. Order, immediate one hour advancement of clocks and five days working in a week.

7. Order, immediate maximum facilitation to all and sundry, installing and using Solar energy at their premises, like as in India, bank loans are given for Solar energy at 4% interest rates. Our customs department charges tax on one pretext or the other, on Solar energy equipments, although the government has declared it as tax free. This matter should be resolved once forever.

It has also been reported that BOP has recently launched a scheme to provide loans to general public, for the installation of Solar energy sets at highly exorbitant mark up rates of 17%, which is a highly discouraging, disappointing and self defeating decision. Necessary orders may be issued to reduce this mark up rate to 3%, at the most, to provide genuine relief to the general public. Let the public money be utilised for the convenience of the public. Moreover, all other banks should also be compulsorily bound to give on monthly basis, a fixed amount of Solar energy sets loans to the general public, throughout the country, on confessional rate of 3%, as is the law for the agricultural loans.

Wishing you all the success, in your endeavours to serve the country, in a manner to be remembered in the annuls of the history.

Na Samgho Gay To Mit Jao Gay Aay Pakistan Walo,

Tumharey Datan Tak Na Ho Gy Dastano mein.

Regards,

Syed Nayyar Uddin Ahmad

Lahore.

Sent from my iPad3 4G LTE

Don’t make a habit of pointing out other people’s flaws. You’re not perfect either. Look in the mirror before you look out the window.

farrah (Mumbai)