Health, Human Rights and Intervention Flashcards
Which indicators can measure human development?
- Composite indicators (HDI + Gender Development Index), more accurate by reducing extremes w 3+ indicators but data may be incomplete
- Single social measures reflect importance and show broader context (literacy, life expectancy etc.)
How is human development measured using GDP?
- Most commonly used measure but gives narrow view of development
- Lacks regional picture, as no urban/rural contrasts shown, but easy comparison between nations
- Issues related to purchasing power parity
What factors other than wealth/income provide human contentment?
- Link between humans and ecosystem wellbeing
- Env measures include carbon footprints, Environmental Sustainability/Performance Index
How do env quality, health, life expectancy and human rights aid development?
Env - part of UN sustainable goals (pollution, degradation + overuse of resources)
Health - Food security (malnutrition + famine), access to clean water, disease, natural hazards, no of doctors
Life - How long newborns will live, gender divides (childbirth/aids), reflects health/living conditions/econ development
Rights - measured by Freedom Index
How does economic growth deliver other significant goals for development?
- More FDI = TNC investment = income growth = tax revenue, so more spending power + potential - consumerism
- Some changes can be linked e.g. life expectancy, but others aren’t reliably linked e.g. HR can deteriorate in short term
How is education central to econ development?
- More people know + assert rights
- Helps females challenge barriers to education
- Helps access to basic hygiene + healthcare
- Improves decision making, communication, trade, knowledge and skills
How does education help with human rights?
- Equality law guarantees status and rights
- Need to ensure govmt spends 4-5% GDP on education
- Literacy means understanding rights
What does gender equality in education improve?
- Female education + literacy improves health and child mortality
- Educated women in Iran have children at 24, otherwise at 20
What barriers to education are there?
Poverty, (internal) conflict, epidemic, marginalised groups, natural disasters, cultural conservatism
What does global access to education look like and what is UNESCO’s role?
- 60 million children not in primary schl, 65 million not in secondary
- 70% with equal gender access to primary, 50% to secondary
- UNESCO promotes fundamental rights, 1 laptop per child policy, US Lincoln Learning Centres
What are variations in health and life expectancy in developing world?
- Between countries: r.ship w GDP/capita, significant variation providing basic services, developed healthcare, lifestyle issues
- war/civil unrest (fatalities, higher spending on military, destruction of infrastructure)
- Within: urban/rural contrasts esp deindustrialised cities with poor access to healthcare so higher maternal/infant mortality rates, ethnic variations driven by poverty
Differential access to food
- Poor nutrition linked to TB
- Informal jobs, primary sector/low paid, landlords exploit
- Can’t afford food
Differential access to water supply
- Water pollution (typhoid/cholera)
- Water is relatively expensive
Differential access to sanitation
- Large volumes of raw waste, posing health risk, not dealt with/dealt informally
- Ineffective sewage disposal
- Turn waste into sanitation blocks built by UN
How does lack of basic needs affect infant and maternal mortality?
- Infant mortality rates in developing world determine life expectancy
- High infant mortality rates in remote rural areas where maternal healthcare is underfunded + clean water is unavailable
- Polio and TB
Why does having access to toilets matter?
- Access to school, equal access to sanitary products, period poverty, place of women in society
- Lower risks, less disease
- Structure of society and vulnerability
- Privacy, culture, health and development
How does life expectancy vary in the developed world?
- UK N/S divide, post industrial decline
- Gradual increase esp men w less physically demanding jobs
- Highest in Dorset (86), lowest in Glasgow (78)
What is the difference in lifestyles in developed world?
- NI: smoking, heavy industry, poor health spending
- England: alcohol
- Wales: men alcohol + labour, female obesity +BP
- Scotland: shortest LE
Levels of deprivation and availability to medical care in developed world
- Poverty symptoms combine to create health risks, leading to death/lower LE
- Societal access is polarised w very rich and very poor
- Wealthier lifestyle carries risk, can afford alcohol and cigarettes
What are significant variations in health and LE within countries? (UK and USA)
UK - A&E/NHS is better for trauma and access for poorest
- Not instant healthcare unless rich, state funded w taxation
USA - Private, individually led + targeted, better funded, specialist healthcare
- High insurance premiums, oversubscription of drugs to those with less money, want them to leave asap
How does the relationship between economic and social depend on govmt decisions? (England)
- Aim to meet basic needs + create opps but depends on where you live
- N has factories shutting and less investment
- SE has higher income/living prices but lower air quality (can afford to move then commute)
- Health linked to freedom and LE, other factors inc private medical plans and postcode lottery
What are welfare states?
- State led and funded by taxation
- Focused on social wellbeing, equality of opportunity, redistribution of wealth
- N/S divide, advantages of wealth
- High health and education spending
What are totalitarian regimes?
- Centralised, dictatoria, complex subservience
- Doesn’t mean you can’t be successful and get social progress
- Autocratic, stuck in cycle of poverty
What is the role of World Bank, IMF and WTO in defining development policies?
- With global recession, money borrowed from IMF and World Bank
- But higher oil prices in 70s, debt increased and needed more money to repay
Neo-liberal views of development based on free trade (Chile)
- Chile tried to create Free Trade of the Americas
- Committed to Pacific Alliance and Trans-Pacific Partnership
- 70s, companies/copper mines reprivatised
How is there development through adoption of privatisation?
- Competition allowed until economy is dominated by conglomerate which may reduce competition
- Competition = successful gain more success but less successful become even less successful (inequality grows)
How is there development through deregulation of financial markets?
- World Banks provided money for loans and unpaid debt on condition that govs are forced to continue reforms that favour free-market capitalism
What are recent programmes aimed at improving environmental quality? (Chile)
- Slowed deforestation and began tree planting
- Increased soil quality supports wheat, oats and grape production
- 200,000 firewood heaters replaced by gas, paraffin and wood pellet based heaters
- Improve air quality and CO2 emissions
What are recent programmes aimed at health?
- Ageing population, need more women, youth and immigrants
- President Bachelet (Chile), company taxes paid into early childhood development programmes and maternal mortality
What are recent programmes aimed at education?
- Free nursery places for every child, encourage women and youth into labour forces
What recent programmes in Chile are aimed at human rights?
- $8 billion spent on poorest region of Chile
- Land returned Mapuchas
- Not allowed to sell it to non-Mapuche investors
What are the UN Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) aims?
- Agreed in 2000, aim to fight poverty and combat issues preventing human development
- Width of gap for 8 goals measured annually, evident progress but uneven across regions/countries
Why is progress of MDGs mixed?
- Some progress linked to growing Chinese affluence
- Local development always varies
What is the UN post-2015 development agenda?
- Willingness to accept not all goals can be achieved reduces motivation
- Written through consultation with major groups + stakeholders in 70 countries
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Dev agreed by world leaders
- SDGs to end poverty, fight inequality/injustice and tackle CC
Advantages of setting new goals to include sustainable development
- Address root causes of poverty and style of development that works for all
- Connected to 3 strategic focus areas of UN Dev Programme
- Sustainable dev, democratic gov + peace building, climate + disaster resilience
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- 1948, fundamental HRs and moral principles
- All humans have the right to be respected and seek justice in courts if the right has not been honoured
- e.g. right to life, liberty and security of person. Everyone has the right to just and favourable conditions of work
How the UDHR is a statement of intent and a framework for foreign policy statements?
- Countries meant to adopt all aspects
- Led to Covenants on Civil and Political Rights, Economic and Social Rights, International Bill of Human Rights
Why have not all states signed the UDHR?
- They’re authoritarian countries and don’t agree
- Executions, slavery and discrimination against women
How does the European Convention on Human Rights help prevent conflict?
- 1950, helped to build a united political Europe
- Hypocrisy of Western Europe
- Established a European Court of Human Rights in 1959
- Led to UK Human Rights Acts in 1998, can assert rights in UK court rather than European
States invoke HRs in international forums and debates
- HRs down 2% from 2005 - 2015
- Tackle w global communication, pressure on UNm impose sanctions
- Freedom House measure HRs, open political competition or HRs violated?