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"Human rights education mooted to get rid of caste discrimination" |
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Written by The Economic Times
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Friday, 13 January 2012 13:45 |
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"Children must be helped to see that caste is not a badge of honour, but caste is a badge of shame," the report on 'Empowerment of Scheduled Caste' prepared by the Working Group said.
"They (children) should be helped to see that a big country like India with great ambition and expectations requires large minds and hearts while the caste system narrows the mind and the heart," it said.
The group recommended that human rights education with emphasis on anti-human, anti-national and anti-constitutional nature of caste system, caste loyalties, caste biases and caste antagonisms should be introduced in every educational institution at all levels.
"Such human rights education also needs to be introduced in teacher-training institutions, IAS, IPS and other central as well as state service training institutions," the report said.
It said the Union and State Ministers in charge of pre-schooling and higher education should take proactive initiative in making such human rights education a reality and convey the seriousness of central and state government about this task to entire educational machinery.
To ensure action against untouchability, the report has recommends a comprehensive campaign to sensitise community of teachers to make them a bulwark against this in educational institutions. It has also recommended recognition and reward for panchayats which take initiative to end discrimination against SCs in their areas.
To provide financial support for this purpose, the Working Group in its report has recommended full budgetary support and active socio-political participation in this regard all over the country.
Terming the prevailing caste system as "a badge of shame", the Social Justice Ministry has recommended human rights education at various levels including civil services and other central service training institutions to get rid of caste-based discrimination.
The report of the '12th Five Year Plan Working Group' of the Ministry has observed that the caste system narrows mind and hearts and human rights education with emphasis on its ill-effects should be introduced in educational institutions at all levels.
Source: The Economic Times
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Human Development Report 2011 |
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Written by UNDP
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Thursday, 17 November 2011 05:54 |
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Overview
This year’s Report focuses on the challenge of sustainable and equitable progress. A joint lens shows how environmental degradation intensifies inequality through adverse impacts on already disadvantaged people and how inequalities in human development amplify environmental degradation.
Human development, which is about expanding people’s choices, builds on shared natural resources. Promoting human development requires addressing sustainability—locally, nationally and globally—and this can and should be done in ways that are equitable and empowering.
We seek to ensure that poor people’s aspirations for better lives are fully taken into account in moving towards greater environmental sustainability. And we point to pathways that enable people, communities, countries and the international community to promote sustainability and equity so that they are mutually reinforcing.
Why sustainability and equity?
The human development approach has enduring relevance in making sense of our world and addressing challenges now and in the future. Last year’s 20th anniversary Human Development Report (HDR) celebrated the concept of human development, emphasizing how equity, empowerment and sustainability expand people’s choices. At the same time it highlighted inherent challenges, showing that these key aspects of human development do not always come together.
The case for considering sustainability and equity together
This year we explore the intersections between environmental sustainability and equity, which are fundamentally similar in their concern for distributive justice. We value sustainability because future generations should have at least the same possibilities as people today. Similarly, all inequitable processes are unjust: people’s chances at better lives should not be constrained by factors outside their control. Inequalities are especially unjust when particular groups, whether because of gender, race or birthplace, are systematically disadvantaged.
More than a decade ago Sudhir Anand and Amartya Sen made the case for jointly considering sustainability and equity. “It would be a gross violation of the universalist principle,” they argued, “if we were to be obsessed about intergenerational equity without at the same time seizing the problem of intragenerational equity” (emphasis in original). Similar themes emerged from the Brundtland Commission’s 1987 report and a series of international declarations from Stockholm in 1972 through Johannesburg in 2002. Yet today many debates about sustainability neglect equality, treating it as a separate and unrelated concern. This perspective is incomplete and counterproductive.
Some key definitions
Human development is the expansion of people’s freedoms and capabilities to lead lives that they value and have reason to value. It is about expanding choices. Freedoms and capabilities are a more expansive notion than basic needs. Many ends are necessary for a “good life,” ends that can be intrinsically as well as instrumentally valuable—we may value biodiversity, for example, or natural beauty, independently of its contribution to our living standards.
Disadvantaged people are a central focus of human development. This includes people in the future who will suffer the most severe consequences of the risks arising from our activities today. We are concerned not only with what happens on average or in the most probable scenario but also with what happens in the less likely but still possible scenarios, particularly when the events are catastrophic for poor and vulnerable people.
Sustainable human development is the expansion of the substantive freedoms of people today while making reasonable efforts to avoid seriously compromising those of future generations. Debates over what environmental sustainability means often focus on whether human-made capital can substitute for natural resources— whether human ingenuity will relax natural resource constraints, as in the past. Whether this will be possible in the future is unknown and, coupled with the risk of catastrophe, favours the position of preserving basic natural assets and the associated flow of ecological services. This perspective also aligns with human rights–based approaches to development. Sustainable human development is the expansion of the substantive freedoms of people today while making reasonable efforts to avoid seriously compromising those of future generations. Reasoned public deliberation, vital to defining the risks a society is willing to accept, is crucial to this idea.
The joint pursuit of environmental sustainability and equity does not require that the two always be mutually reinforcing. In many instances there will be trade-offs. Measures to improve the environment can have adverse effects on equity—for example, if they constrain economic growth in developing countries. The Report illustrates the types of joint impacts that policies could have, while acknowledging that they do not hold universally and underlining that context is critical.
Author: UNDP Source: Myjoyonline.com
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Last Updated on Thursday, 17 November 2011 05:58 |
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Rethinking Ghana’s Double Taxation Agreements: Citizenship, Residency, and Tax Credits |
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Written by J. Atsu Amegashie
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Friday, 04 November 2011 16:56 |
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To appear in The Tax Journal, Chartered Institute of Taxation, GhanaVirtually all countries of the world, especially developing countries, give tax incentives to foreign firms and individuals in order to attract investment, generate employment, and boost economic growth. An example of these tax incentives is a Double Taxation Agreement (DTA) between countries.Double taxation is the imposition of taxes in two or more States on the same tax payer in respect of the same income or the imposition of multiple taxes on the same income by the State. A well-known but controversial example is the taxation of dividends paid out to shareholders when these dividends have already been taxed through a profit (corporate) tax (i.e., when profit is taxed dividends are not tax deductible). Therefore, it is argued that dividends are taxed twice.
Ghana has signed Double Taxation Agreements (DTAs) with, among others, France, UK, Belgium, Italy, Germany, South Africa, and Switzerland. DTAs save investors in the participating countries money because they are not liable to pay taxes in both countries. For instance, if an Italian firm or individual invests in Ghana and pays taxes in Italy on the income earned in Ghana, it is not liable to pay taxes on the same investment in Ghana. This is intended to avoid excessive taxation (double taxation) and thereby boost investment in Ghana. To the extent that firms and individuals in developed countries have a greater capacity to invest in Ghana relative to the capacity of Ghanaian firms and individuals to invest in these countries, DTAs with developed countries are arguably beneficial and indeed are win-win situations for both countries: Ghana gets no tax revenue but benefits from foreign direct investment and the developed country gets all the tax revenue.
But do Ghana’s DTAs, as currently structured, boost investment in Ghana? Or to put it differently, will abolishing DTAs discourage investment in Ghana? The answer, in my view, is NO. To explain why, I shall argue that there exists another bilateral taxation agreement that allows Ghana to tax the incomes earned by foreigners in Ghana but which gives these foreigners the same or better investment incentives as DTAs.
I begin by explaining a key difference between two concepts of the taxation of foreign income. I use the United States of America (USA) and Canada as examples. Taxation in Canada is based on “residency. Canadian citizens who are not “residents” of Canada do not pay taxes on their foreign income. Residency depends on a number of factors, including length of stay in Canada in a given year, ownership of property, maintenance of bank accounts, maintenance of a home, membership in organizations, etc. To avoid double taxation of foreign income, Canada taxes income earned abroad but allows a credit for tax paid to foreign governments. Suppose that my Canadian tax liability on income earned in Germany is $7000 and I paid $5000 in taxes to the German State. Then, as a resident of Canada, I get a tax credit of $5000 and so I will pay only $7000 – $5000 = $2000 to the Canadian Revenue Agency in respect of the income earned in Germany. The tax credit cannot exceed what the full Canadian tax on the foreign income would have been. Therefore, in the above example, the maximum tax credit is $7000. In contrast, taxation in the USA is based on citizenship. Therefore, US citizens, wherever they reside, are taxable on their global income with credits permitted for taxes paid to foreign governments.
By signing bilateral taxation agreements that combine tax credits and variants of the principles of citizenship and residency discussed above, Ghana can tax the incomes earned by foreigners in Ghana and still give these foreigners the same investment incentives as DTAs. Hereafter, I shall refer to these agreements as Tax Sharing Agreements (TSA). Under TSA, the participating countries must determine which country would be the primary taxing authority (PTA) and which country would be the secondary taxing authority (STA). The PTA is the first to tax the income earned. The STA gives the taxpayer a tax credit based on the tax paid to the PTA and then taxes the residual income. I propose that the residency requirement should first be applicable wherein the country (i.e., host country) in which the income is earned is the PTA and the country where the parent company is located or of which the investor is a citizen is the STA. Under this TSA, the host country (for my purposes, Ghana) will always earn some tax revenue while the other country is also likely to earn some revenue. In fact, given that our marginal tax rates on capital gains, labor income, wealth, corporate income, etc are lower than the corresponding rates in developed countries, the tax credit that a foreigner investor will earn if Ghana is the PTA will not exceed the full tax liability in the foreign country. Therefore, the foreign country will also earn some tax revenue.
But even more importantly, this proposed TSA will not affect the investment incentives of foreigners. Note that under Ghana’s DTAs, as currently structured, the foreign investor will still pay taxes in his country of origin. Nothing in the DTAs says that both countries will not tax the investor. If this were the case, then a TSA will discourage investment in Ghana relative to a DTA. But given that under the present DTAs, the country of origin will still tax the investor and that these countries have higher tax rates than Ghana, the proposed TSA -- which makes allowances for tax credits as explained above -- implies that the investor’s tax liability under a TSA cannot be more than his tax ability under a DTA. Therefore, relative to DTAs, the proposed TSA will not adversely affect the investment incentives of foreigners.
For a developing country that wants to reduce its dependence on foreign aid, boost tax revenues, promote investment and economic growth, TSAs clearly dominate DTAs. They should be embraced by Ghana and her development partners.
*The author, J. Atsu Amegashie,Teaches economics at the University of Guelph, Canada
J. Atsu Amegashie
Department of Economics
University of GuelphGuelph,
Ontario
Canada
N1G 2W1
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Two out of three children in Africa are left out of secondary school |
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Written by Worlali Senyo
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Thursday, 27 October 2011 15:53 |
Governments are struggling to meet the rising demand for secondary education, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where there are enough school places for just 36% of children of age to enrol. Girls face the greatest barriers as the gender gap widens across the region, according to the 2011 Global Education Digest published by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
Globally, secondary schools have been accommodating almost one hundred million more students each decade, with the total number growing by 60% between 1990 and 2009. But with increasing numbers of children attending and completing primary level education, demand for places in secondary education has increased exponentially.
According to the Digest, 88% of children reached the last grade of this level of education in 2009, compared to 81% in 1999. Yet a child in the last grade of primary only has at best a 75% chance of making the transition to lower secondary school in about 20 countries around the world, the overwhelming majority of which are in sub-Saharan Africa.
“There can be no escape from poverty without a vast expansion of secondary education. This is a minimum entitlement for equipping youth with the knowledge and skills they need to secure decent livelihoods in today’s globalized world. It is going to take ambition and commitment to meet this challenge. But it is the only path towards prosperity,” said UNESCO’s Director-General Irina Bokova. “An educated population is a country’s greatest wealth. The inequalities signalled in this Report, especially in relation to girls’ exclusion from secondary education in many countries, have enormous implications for the achievement of all the internationally agreed development goals, from child and maternal health and HIV prevention to environmental security.”
The Digest, produced by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, presents a wide range of indicators on the extent to which girls and boys are enrolling and completing secondary education. The report also enriches policy debates by examining the human and financial resources devoted to the classroom experience of students. For example, the total number of secondary teachers has risen by 50% since 1990 although shortages persist, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
Yet in terms of enrolment, sub-Saharan Africa has made the greatest gains of all regions, with gross enrolment ratios rising from 28% to 43% for lower secondary and from 20% to 27% for upper secondary education between 1999 and 2009. Nevertheless, more than 21.6 million children of lower secondary school age remain excluded from education across the region and many will never even spend a day in school.
Girls are the first to suffer from this inequality, according to the Digest. In sub-Saharan Africa, the gross enrolment ratio for girls in lower secondary education is 39% compared to 48% for boys. Moreover, girls are less likely than boys to complete this level of schooling in a large majority of countries in the region reporting data.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in which the gender disparities against girls are getting worse at the upper secondary level, with 8 million boys enrolled compared to only 6 million girls, according to the Digest. Between 1999 and 2009, the gross enrolment ratio for boys rose by nine percentage points for boys (from 22% to 31%) compared to only six percentage points for girls (18% to 24%).
Girls also face significant barriers in South and West Asia, although the situation is improving. About 35 million girls were enrolled in lower secondary education in 2009, with the female gross enrolment ratio reaching 69% compared to 53% in 1999. However, household survey data reveal even further inequities based on the geographic location and household wealth of students. For example, in Pakistan a 10 to 12 year old boy from a wealthy urban family is three times more likely to attend school than a girl from a poor family living in a rural area.
The prospects for girls have been improving in other regions such as East Asia and the Pacific, where the lower secondary gross enrolment ratio for girls grew from 75% to 91% between 1999 and 2009.
Significant improvements have also been made in the Arab States, with the female gross enrolment ratio for lower secondary education rising from 67% to 82% over the same period. Across the region, girls are also more likely than boys to complete lower secondary education in three-quarters of countries with available data. However, challenges remain at the upper secondary level, where there are enough school places for just 47% of girls and 49% of boys of upper secondary school age to enrol, according to the Digest. This gap gets even wider when the household wealth of these children is considered. In Egypt, poor households are more likely to send their sons to school than their daughters. This gender disparity is not seen among the wealthiest segment of society. Only about 37% of poor girls between the ages of 15 and 17 attend school compared to 90% of wealthy boys and 87% of wealthy girls.
“All of these data underscore a central message: secondary education is the next great challenge,” states Hendrik van der Pol, director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. “According to the Digest, about one-third of the world’s children live in countries where lower secondary education is formally considered to be compulsory but the laws are not respected. We need to translate the commitment into reality.”
This will entail considerable amounts of new financial and human resources. As highlighted in the Digest, secondary education costs more than primary education mostly because of the need for teachers trained to provide subject-specific instruction. In many developing countries, the families of students are often shouldering the burden of these higher costs.
Households in sub-Saharan Africa are making significant investments in their children’s education, by contributing the equivalent of 49% and 44% of total spending on lower and upper secondary education respectively. In Latin America and the Caribbean as well as in East Asia and the Pacific, household contributions to both levels of secondary education range from 25% to 41% on average. In contrast, the families of students in North America and Western Europe provide just 7% of total spending on secondary education, according to the Digest.
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The full report is available for journalists at: www.uis.unesco.org/publications/GED2011
Source: UNESCO
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Last Updated on Thursday, 27 October 2011 16:14 |
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