Ethics and Development
INTER-AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK
Inter-American Initiative on Social Capital, Ethics and Development
May 24, 2006
No. 178
"Seeking the well-being of others, we find our own"
Plato
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Team
General Coordinator
Bernardo Kliksberg
Deputy General Coodinators
Liliana
Basile
Ada Ines
Piazze
Editor-Chief
Virginia
Rose-Losada
Technical Team
Judith Boidman
Eloise
Fluet
Silvia
Lopez-Martinez
Gabriel
Mops
Maria Loreto Torres
Translation
Eloisa
Marques
Marília Rangel
Ribas Martins
1300 New York Ave, N.W. Washington, DC 20577
NEWS
New
Section in our Newsletter: The Pending Ethics Agenda
Seeking to further instigate the regional debate on the role of ethics
and social capital in development, the Ethics and Development Bulletin
of the Inter-American Initiative on Social Capital, Ethics, and
Development presents a new section called "The Pending Ethics
Agenda". This new section will include short articles from
specialized magazines, newspapers and other sources highlighting key
ethical challenges the region faces today. Further down we inaugurate
this section with a few reflections by Noble Economics Prize winner
Amarty Sen on liberty and inequality.
IDB
launches scholarship program for government officials in Latin America
and the Caribbean
On May 17, the Inter-American Development Bank announced that it is
launching a scholarship program for mid-level government officials in
Latin America and the Caribbean to obtain master's degrees at five
universities in the region. The scholarships are designed for officials
with at least five years of experience in the public sector who have not
reached the highest managerial levels in their agencies. Scholarship
recipients must agree to return to work in their countries and their
employers must expressly guarantee that the officials may do so once
their studies are completed.
http://www.iadb.org/NEWS/articledetail.cfm?language=English&ARTID=3076
IDB Fund
approves grant for program to support civil society organizations that
promote transparency and accountability
The Inter-American Development Bank's Multilateral Investment Fund
announced on May 18th the approval of a $600,000 grant for a program to
support targeted projects of civil society organizations to increase
transparency in public and private sector economic activities. Resources
will support projects and help disseminate successful initiatives. A
Regional Fund for the Promotion of Transparency (FONTRA) will be created
to cover activities in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and
Uruguay.
http://www.iadb.org/NEWS/articledetail.cfm?language=English&ARTID=3082&ARTTYPE=PR&PARID=2
OF INTEREST
"Diálogo
Social en América Latina: un camino hacia la democracia ciudadana"
editors Ada Piazze and Nicolás Flano, IDB 2006
This rigorous and thoroughly researched document comes to fill in an
unsatisfied need in the region: the need for a social dialogue and a
look at what has been done and how it can be strengthened in the region.
The document is the outcome of an effort by two well known experts in
the field: Nicolás Flano and Ada Inés Piazze who combine experiences
and best practices carried out in Honduras, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Brazil,
and Peru. Flano and Piazze are not only editors of the document but also
active participants as they carried out the Aylwin Initiative launched
by the Chilean Ex-president which sought to promote social dialogue. The
book presents a pluralistic and heterogenic perspective on the dynamic
process of social dialogue in Latin America in the last few years. This
document is surely to become a must-read for those interested in these
issues. To get a copy of this document please send an email to Luis
Flores at idb-books@iadb.org.
"The
End of Child Labour: Within Reach" by the ILO
The International Labour Organization recently published the study
"The end of child labour: Within reach". In it, the study
shows that Latin America and the Caribbean have made significant
progress in reducing child labor thanks to further awareness, stronger
political will, and concrete measures in the field of poverty
alleviation and universal education. Part of the overall progress is
attributed to the important achievements obtained by Brazil and Mexico
who have developed successful programs aimed at reducing poverty through
conditional cash-transfer programs for poor families. To access more
information and the document visit:
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inf/pr/2006/15.htm
Spanish
Organization Remesas.org measures for the first time the cost of
remittances
Remesas.org, a Spanish network of researchers interested in studying
remittances, presented a study measuring the cost of all means by which
one may send remittances back home: bank transfers, intermediaries,
specialized agencies etc. The study estimated that remittances to Ibero-America
of 150 euros cost between 3% and 23%. For more information visit:
http://www.remesas.org
"Inequality
in Latin America: a synthesis of recent research on the levels, trends,
effects and determinants of inequality in its different dimensions"
by Patricia Medrano, Claudia Sanhueza, and Dante Contreras for the
Inter-Regional Inequality Facility
The Inter-Regional Inequality Facility exists to promote inter-regional
dialogue and knowledge sharing on the issue of inequality - how it
affects development, and how it can be addressed by policy - between
Africa, Asia and Latin America. This study is part of their regional
studies and its objective is to uncover what inequality means in Latin
America in different dimensions; what the consequences are for poverty
reduction and growth; what the causes are of inequality; and to review
some policy interventions that have been useful in fighting poverty. It
also aims to discover where we are in terms of amount of knowledge on
inequality in Latin America, and what is left to find out. To access the
document click:
http://www.odi.org.uk/inter-regional_inequality/papers/IRIFRegionalSynthesis_LatinAmerica.pdf
OPPORTUNITIES
Online
Course "Top Management in Rural Tourism", Faculty of
Agronomics, Buenos Aires University, Argentina
"Top Management in Rural Tourism" is an international program
aimed to train farmers, businessmen, and civil servants working in areas
related to rural tourism. For more information send an email to campotur@agro.uba.ar
or visit http://www.agro.uba.ar/catedras/turismo/presentacion.htm
Ethics,
Human Capital, and Development Diploma, Altiplano National University,
Puno, Peru
The Ethics, Human Capital, and Development diploma is a two semester
program aimed to provide students with a new understanding and engage
them in the construction of ethics and human capital. It seeks to
promote dialogue, discussion and collective compromise as responsible
citizens. It aims to attract university students from all years and
faculties of the Altiplano National University of Puno. Registration is
open until may 26 2006. For more information send an email to correocentral@pastoralunapuna.org
or visit www.pastoralunapuno.org
Diploma on
Decentralization and Modernization for the Strategic Administration of
the State, University of Chile, Chile
It is still possible to take part in the Decentralization and
Modernization Diploma that will be held at the Social Sciences Faculty
of the University of Chile. The diploma is aimed at professionals and
executives currently working in development within the public sector at
all levels (central, regional or local level), private sector and
independent specialists working in the field of development and State
Administration. The diploma stretches over 8 months and will take place
between the months of June 2006 and January 2007. For more information
visit:
http://www.csociales.uchile.cl/postitulo/diplomados/proasocia/index.html
CALENDAR
"Finding
Best Practices for More Professional and Sustainable NGOs: an event for
the exchange of creative and inspiring examples", June 9th, Buenos
Aires, Argentina
This event is jointly organized among others by Amartya, Avina, and
Despierta Argentina and will be held at the Panamericano Hotel from 9am
to 1pm. The event wishes to bring together NGOs as to discuss and share
their experiences in order to highlight common ground, best practices
and opportunities for future growth. Registration is free of cost but it
is highly recommended that more than one representative per NGO takes
part. For more information email: inscripciones@despiertaargentina.org.ar
THE PENDING ETHICS AGENDA
FREEDOM
AND INEQUALITY*
Amartya Sen
Let me briefly outline an approach that I have found useful in thinking about development, and which I believe in a broad way relates to the basic insights that Adam Smith tried to pursue and develop. It is argued in this approach that a good starting point for the analysis of development can be the basic recognition that freedom is both (1) the primary objective, and (2) the principal means of development. The former is an evaluative claim and includes appreciation of the principle that the assessment of development cannot be divorced from the lives that people can lead and the real freedoms that they enjoy. Development can scarcely be seen merely in terms of enhancement of inanimate objects of convenience, such as a rise in the GNP (or in personal incomes), or industrialization, or technological advance, or social modernization. These are, of course, valuable - often crucially important - accomplishments, but their value must depend on what they do to the lives and freedoms of the people involved¹.
The linkage between freedom and development goes, however, well beyond the constitutive connections. Freedom, it is argued, is not only the ultimate end of development, it is also a crucially effective means. This acknowledgment can be based on empirical analysis of the consequences of - and interconnections between - freedoms of distinct kinds, and on extensive empirical evidence that indicates that freedoms of different types typically help to sustain each other². What a person has the actual capability to achieve is influenced by economic opportunities, political liberties, social facilities, and the enabling conditions of good health, basic education, and the encouragement and cultivation of initiatives. These opportunities are, to a great extent, mutually complementary, and tend to reinforce the reach and use of one another. It is because of these interconnections that free and sustainable agency emerges as a generally effectual engine of development.
Equity and the Perspective of Freedom
The rhetoric of freedom has been widely used by many thinkers who have had relatively little interest in equity and sometimes some antipathy as well. Indeed, the alleged conflict between liberty and equality has been much discussed by champions of liberty, particularly in the context of seeing it as an argument against giving too much priority to equality³. It is, however, hard to see how equity can fail to be central to the perspective of freedom. If freedom is really important, it could hardly be right to reserve it only for a chosen few. It is important in this context to recognise that denials and violations of freedom come typically in the form of refusing the benefits of freedom to some even when others have the opportunity of plentifully enjoying those very freedoms. Inequality is a central concern in the perspective of freedom.
As it happens, freedom is not only among the most valued ideas in the world, it is also among the most feared of human conditions. Why is this so? Even though psychologists have often discussed the fact that freedom in one's own life can be seen as a cause for anxiety and concern (particularly since responsibility comes with freedom), I would nevertheless venture to suggest that it is not typically the case that people fear freedom in their own lives. Those who are afraid of freedom tend mostly to be afraid of the freedom of others. Depending on the political inclinations of the particular critics of freedom, their fear of other people's freedom may concentrate on particular fields in which they think freedom would be especially bad for all to have. The fear of freedom comes, thus, in many shapes and form: fearing, respectively, the freedom of the discontented lower classes, of the aggrieved rural masses, of the disgruntled women grumbling about their assigned "place," of the rebellious youth refusing to be compliant and obedient, and of the determined dissidents protesting about the existing order.
For example, those who are opposed to seeing political freedoms as political rights of people to which they are all entitled typically do not deny themselves any such right: the right to speak, to express freely, to participate in decision taking, and so on. What they argue against is political freedom of others, not against political freedom for themselves. Similar contrasts apply in other domains of freedom: economic, social and cultural. It is other people's freedom that have tended to worry many commentators writing against freedom, who have not, however, offered to give up their own freedom. Thus, the need for equity is central to the reach of the perspective of freedom in general, and of the idea of "development as freedom" in particular.
1. See also
Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen, eds., The Quality of Life (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1993), and David Crocker and Toby Linden, eds., Ethics
of Consumption (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998).
2. The evidence is discussed in Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New
York: Knopf, and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
3. I have argued elsewhere that this conflict does not, in fact, exist
(Inequality Reexamined, Oxford: Clarendon Press, and Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1992). Liberty may compete with utility or
real income for the "space" in which equality or efficiency
may be defined, but liberty cannot, without a serious category mistake,
be seen as being in itself antithetical to equality.
*extracts
from "What impact may ethics have?" prepared for the Ethics
Day organized by the Inter-American Initiative on Social Capital,
Ethics, and Development of the IDB. The whole document may be accessed
through the following link:
http://www.iadb.org/etica/SP4321/DocHit.cfm?DocIndex=70
LINK TO OTHER RELATED
BULLETINS
http://www.iadb.org/etica/Boletines/Boletines.cfm?language=Sp&parid=3&item1id=7&item2id=4
PARTNERS
Alianzas- Universidad de San Andrés * Alta Gerencia * AUSJAL * BID Juventud * CEMEFI * CLAD * El Colegio de México * CPII * Fundación Getulio Vargas * Government of France * Gestión Social * Government of Norway * Institut Internacional de Governabilitat de Catalunya * IntraMed * La Sociedad Digital * Ministerio de Educación de la Argentina-EDUSOL *OEA- IACD * OEI * PAHO * PRIGEPP * Sur Norte Inversión y Desarrollo * Televisión América Latina (TAL)* UNDP * UNESCO * UN Volunteers * U. of Maryland * U. de Oslo