http://www.un.org/av/photo/subjects/30.htm
Human rights and human responsibilities
are two halves of member care "good practice".
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Mission/aid sending groups have a responsibility to manage and support their staff well. They also have a right to make sure that their staff are providing quality services This responsibility can be assessed through things like performance reviews and mutual feedback tools. All the above assertions are part of good practice.
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Furthermore, mission and/aid staff have a responsibility to provide quality services to/through their sending groups. They also have the right to expect/receive good supportive/managerial services from their sending groups. These two previous asertions are also a core part of good practice.
Note: An example of the responsibility of sending groups in particular is embodied in the seven general principles found in the Code of Good Practice (2003) developed by People In Aid. http://www.peopleinaid.org/
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The sending group’s responsibility for the good practice of member care is analogous to the nation-state’s responsibility for the good practice of human rights. When senders/states consistently do not recognise or even deny the basic rights of their staff/citizens, then their very legitimacy in the eyes of their respective communities—the mission/aid community and the international community—will be seriously questioned. In the worst cases, senders and states would be viewed as "illegitimite or even failed entities" and "poor-practice pariahs". Fortunately, this last point is extreme and thus the exception within the mission/aid community. However, more moderate forms of poor practice do in fact flourish in many settings.
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Consider these thoughts from David Little (Harvard University), in the Foreword of John Nurser’s book, For All People and All Nations: Christian Churches and Human Rights (2005).
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“…the Human Rights Commission [1945] went on to bring into being the Universal Declaration [1948] and thereby to make way for and inspire a whole array of subsequent human rights documents on civil, political, economic, social, cultural, racial, gender, minority, environmental, and other issues, that today set international standards for what is expected of nation-states, both within and outside their borders. Although these standards are not universally enforced around the world, they are more and more taken to comprise the basic international requirements of political legitimacy. It is simply the case now that states found systematically and grossly to these violate standards are regarded as pariahs.” (x).
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Reflection and Discussion
**Getting a good balance between our respective rights and responsibilities as senders/staff is very important. Why this is true? Give examples in your own sending agency or experience.
** What happens when there is a breakdown in the recognition of these mutual rights and responsibilities, by both senders and staff? (e.g., low morale, poor performance, attrition, and concern from colleagues who are part of other sending groups).
**Comment on these folk adages, with regards to MC and HR: Give some people an inch and they think they are rulers. The golden rule is that the person with the most gold, rules.
