U Can't Touch This

This is a photo of Kotor, Montenegro. Not the best pic in the world, but remember, I randomly select the pictures without being able to see them. The water is the bay and part of the Adriatic sea. The water was not as clear and beautiful as in Croatia, but it was mighty refreshing!

Interesting fact: 60% + or - a few percentage points of the budget of the Macedonian government is spent on social transfers, i.e. public assistance, unemployment, maternity and other benefits, etc. Macedonian employers pay approximately 32% of their employees' gross salary in taxes to pay for social insurance. You can imagine the disincentive to create jobs if, as an employer, you are so highly taxed. Hence, the gray (informal) economy represented approximately 33%-37% of Macedonia's GDP in 2007. Macedonia measures poverty on the basis of consumption as opposed to income due to being a subsistence economy and the prevalence of remittances. The poverty line is at 70% of the median equivalent consumption and in 2005, 30.0% of the population was below this line. That is an increase in from 19.0% in 1997. In the 2005 Millennium Development Report, it is estimated that, on average, 55.1% of the entire population experience one form or another of human poverty. This measurement is based on a combination of life expectancy, educational attainment, literacy and GDP per capita. The main reasons cited for the high level of experience of human poverty is the high proportion of the population illiterate in functional terms and long-term unemployment. All the previous information is found in the 2007 European Commission report entitled, "Social Protection and Social Inclusion in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia".

My conference was somewhat interesting yesterday, although it went on too long. I had an epiphany though. The head of the Institute which conducted the study gave a brief overview of what it means to take a Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA) to development work. I know I talked about the HRBA in another entry, but here is my brainstorm. What would happen if we took the HRBA to providing safety net services in the US? What made this click in my head is when the speaker said that when the UN ratified the treaty on the rights of a child, suddenly, children went from simply objects of charity to individuals with rights and that we, as duty bearers, are challenged in upholding and protecting those rights. What would happen if, instead of seeing TANF (cash assistance) recipients as objects of welfare programs, we approached the issue as though the recipients were subjects, i.e. people with rights and needs? I know there is a welfare rights movement in the US and this is not what I am talking about, per se. What I am saying is this: if we saw recipients of welfare as individuals who have needs and a right to say what those needs are, it would completely change our public assistance system. How about instead of mandating from on high what we think the poor need, we ask them and let them inform the decisions of the policy makers and experts? And while we are asking them, we need to also ensure that we include the socially excluded and vulnerable populations. If we include them in the decision making process, we empower the poor and can, in turn, have mutual accountability for success from both the rights holders (program recipients) and duty bearers (benefit providers). Isn't idealism grand?