This document discusses marginalization and the role of human rights in development. It defines marginalization as the process by which groups are excluded from full participation in society due to their identities. Marginalized populations experience inequalities in resources and power. The UN Declaration on the Right to Development establishes development as a human right and outlines principles of people-centered development, participation, equity, and non-discrimination. Marginalization has negative consequences, but human rights can help address it through empowerment, accountability, non-discrimination, and legal approaches.

1. MARGINALIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT
THE ROLE OF HUMAN RIGHT
BY
OKEKE CHIZOBA GIDEON

2. Marginalization
• Process through which individuals or groups are
peripheralized on the basis of their identities,
associations, sexuality, orientation, experiences, and
environments.
• Refers to the norms and processes that prevent certain
groups from equal and effective participation in the
social, economic, cultural, and political life of
societies.

3. MARGINALIZED POPULATIONS
Group of people who are socially excluded and
experience inequalities in the distribution of
resources and power.
Examples
• sex
• LGBT
• Caste
• Religion
• Race
• Differently abled
• Occupation

5. REASONS FOR MARGINALIZATION
• Lack of understanding these group
• Lack of acceptance
• Intolerance
• Stigmatization
• prejudice

6. THE RIGHT TO DEVELOPMENT 1986
• The Declaration on the Right to Development was proclaimed by the United Nations
General Assembly under resolution 41/128 in 1986
• Everyone is “entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social,
cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental
freedoms can be fully realized,”
• Development is a right that belongs to everyone.

7. THE RIGHT TO DEVELOPMENT 1986
• 1) People-centred development, identifying “the human person” as the central
subject, participant and beneficiary of development.
• 2) A human right-based approach specifically requiring that development is to be
carried out in a manner “in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can
be fully realized”.
• 3) Participation, calling for the “active, free and meaningful participation” of people
in development.
• 4) Equity, underlining the need for “the fair distribution of the benefits” of
development.
• 5) Non-discrimination, permitting “no distinction as to race, sex, language or
religion”
• 6) Self-determination, the declaration integrates self-determination, including full
sovereignty over natural resources, as a constituent element of the right to
development.

8. CONSEQUENCES OF MARGINALIZATION
• Skill loss
• Loss of bargaining power
• Loss of self-esteem, self-confidence
• Psychological harm and misery
• Ill-health and mortality
• Disruption of human relations
• Discouragement
• Breeds cynicism
• Poverty
• Xenophobic attack
• Genocide and ethnic cleansing

9. HOW TO SOLVE MARGINALIZATION
• Awareness and sensitivity
• Recognition and celebration of differences
• Creating spaces for inclusion
• Structural adjustments
• Improving communications and access to information
• Creating spaces for political participation
• Creating shared cognitive spaces
• Empowerment of excluded groups
• Democratizing benefits
• Legislation
• Seeking redress where there is violation.

10. WHERE DOES HUMAN RIGHT COME IN?
• (a) Human rights contribute to empowerment and social protection of marginalized
groups through social mobilization and mechanisms of strengthening accountability.
• (b) Human rights reinforce the work on equity and equality by emphasizing non-
discrimination, raising a demand for disaggregate approaches and for
documentation of how groups are involved and how they participate.
• (c) Human rights bring added attention to legal approaches, a feature that local
actors, including state authorities themselves, are employing in social mobilization
strategies.