The human rights-based-approach to development : a case study of a development project in the Central Highlands of Vietnam

Abstract

The Human Rights-based Approach (HRBA) to development is based on the international human rights framework, and its key principles are participation, empowerment, accountability and non-discrimination. The HRBA has been endorsed by the United Nations (UN) and development agencies as the approach to development that has the capacity to adequately address poverty in the developing world. However, while much has been written about the HRBA as a viable approach to development, little is known about how the HRBA is implemented in practice, especially in non-western settings like Vietnam. This research explores the implementation of the HRBA in two ethnic minority communities in the Central Highlands of Vietnam by investigating the views and experiences of local stakeholders who were involved in the project, highlights the lessons learned and explores the implications for advancing rights-based poverty reduction strategies in non-Western societies. The thesis begins by providing a contextual background to the HRBA project in Vietnam. I then move to explore what poverty means in this context and how this fits with the local perception of recent development approaches. To do so I draw on a range of in-depth interviews undertaken with local stakeholders. Through an in-depth case study of one poverty reduction project, I argue that the successful implementation of the HRBA relies on appropriate adaptation to local settings. More specifically, the findings from this study highlight many difficulties that arose during the implementation of the HRBA in the Central Highlands of Vietnam including a limited capacity of project staff members, especially in terms of their understanding of the HRBA principles and their ability to effectively implement the principles in the communities. The research also found an inability of the HRBA to provide material assistance to the community, in conjunction with capacity building. In light of the issues identified in this case study, I recommend that flexibility be viewed as the fourth principle of the HRBA. Adding flexibility to the core HRBA principles of participation, empowerment and accountability is key to the successful implementation of the HRBA in local settings. This is because poverty is not universally the same, but a context-specific phenomenon associated with local contextual specificities. In other words, there is no universal development model that can deliver universal success. In this thesis, I also discuss different modes of cooperatives as potential strategies that could better enable the adaptation of the HRBA to local settings for these modes of cooperatives could link between capacity building and economic development. They could also be an effective empowering strategy, which is a central component of a development project that aims to implement HRBA to development in the communities.

Date of Award	2018
Original language	English