Yes / The capability approach and sustainability can be connected in numerous ways. One could think of sustainability as a self-contained domain of human analysis – thus there could be theories of sustainability and there may be difficulties in this domain as elsewhere in moving from theory to policy or practice. Thus, capability approach could be considered as an additional lens that can facilitate the transition from sustainability theory to practice; alternatively one could think of the capability approach as offering an alternative paradigm and thus build on both theories and then find ways to move from theory to practice. In this chapter, both of these approaches are recognised and discussed. The capability approach is mainly about enhancing substantive freedoms- we examine the conjectures whether an approach of increasing freedoms is compatible with sustainability and whether freedoms are sufficient for sustainability. We use the case of Mongolia to explore some of these issues of application.

No / For over three decades, the capability approach proposed and developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum has had a distinct impact on development theories and approaches because it goes beyond an economic conception of development and engages with the normative aspects of development. This book explores the new frontiers of the capability approach and its links to human development in three main areas. First, it delves into the philosophical foundations of the approach, re-examining its links to concepts of common good, collective agency and epistemic diversity. Secondly, it addresses its 'operational frontier', aiming to give inclusive explanations of some of the most advanced methods available for capability researchers. Thirdly, it offers a wide range of the applications of this approach, as carried out by a mix of renowned capability scholars and researchers from different disciplines. This broad interdisciplinary range includes the areas of human and sustainable development, inequalities, labour markets, education, special needs, cities, urban planning, housing, social capital and happiness studies, among others.

No / This book demonstrates how the capability approach to human development can contribute to the realisation of the 2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The capability approach dictates that success should not be measured by economic indicators, but by people leading meaningful, free, fulfilled, happy or satisfied lives. Drawing from a range of disciplinary perspectives, this book argues that it is vital that the focus for the SDGs should shift to benefiting the most vulnerable. Case studies from across Asia, Africa, Latin America (global south), and the USA, UK, and Australia (global north) consider how the capability approach can contribute as a practical framework to achieving the SDGs’ ambitions for social, economic, political, and legal progress. Drawing on insights from a range of disciplines, this book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners from law, politics, international relations, criminology, international development, sociology, public policy, area studies and others.

No / This paper seeks to demonstrate how capability approach can be used as a framework for an active rule of law and good governance to reduce or eliminate mob justice practices to create a peaceful society for sustainable development in Africa. Thus, by adopting the capability approach, and the use of the rule of law and good governance to create peace for achieving sustainable development goals (SDG 16). This will also help provide access to justice including to the poor and most vulnerable. The chapter focuses on Africa, by using Ghana as a case study.

The purpose of this narrative study was to describe the role and potentials of drama groups for enhancing and maintaining well-being for female drama group members living with HIV in Uganda. Six semi-structured interviews were carried out and analyzed through a thematic analysis. The analysis was made within a theoretical framework based upon Sen's notion of the capability approach and social psychological theories of the self. The results showed that the activities carried out by the drama group empowered the women through increasing their access to important capabilities such as inclusion and self-respect. It further indicated that the women needed other forms of support before being able to benefit from these activities. However, some capabilities were still inaccessible to the women due to obstacles as poverty and harmful gender norms. / Syftet med den här narrativa studien var att beskriva dramagruppers roll och potentialför att förbättra och upprätthålla välmåendet för kvinnliga dramagruppmedlemmar somlever med HIV i Uganda. Sex semi-strukturerade intervjuer genomfördes ochanalyserades genom en tematisk analys. Analysen gjordes inom ett teoretisk ramverkbaserat på Sen's idé av the capability approach som kombinerades medsocialpsykologiska teorier om självet. Resultatet visade att aktiviteterna som utfördes idramagruppen stärkte kvinnorna genom att öka deras tillgänglighet till viktigakapabiliteter såsom social inkludering och självrespekt. Vidare tydde resultaten på attkvinnorna var i behov av annat slags stöd innan de kunde gagnas av dessa aktiviteter.Dock var vissa kapabiliteter fortfarande oåtkomliga för kvinnorna, vilket orsakades avbegränsningar som fattigdom och skadliga könsnormer.

Doctor Legum - LLD / Many African states are in dire need of economic development to alleviate poverty, enhance the quality of life of peoples and bring development home. To meet this aim, land investments have been the preferred mode of development for a long time on the African continent with particular reference to Ethiopia and Madagascar as selected case studies of this study. Hectares of land are being given away to foreign investors involved in agricultural investments through investments treaties and contracts. The aim is primarily to attract foreign direct investments to boost the economy. Unfortunately, this seems to be a skewed vision of development, focusing exclusively on economic development without any consideration to social, cultural and political development of people, especially local communities. Such a narrow mode of development is not in line with human rights principles and considerations with thousands of people of the two countries having their basic human rights being constantly and irreparably violated by the actions of foreign investors involved in land investments. Their lands are being grabbed and this is entailing a series of other major infringements of civil and political as well as socio-economic rights intrinsically linked to land. Ethiopia and Madagascar are both parties to major legal instruments on human rights at the UN and the African level. They have legal obligations to respect, protect and fulfil human rights that are being violated on a daily basis by land grabbing. In addition, their domestic legal frameworks are supposed to confer adequate and effective protection to those human rights and protect them from the negative impacts of land grabbing. When such a mode of economic development is resulting in basic human rights violations, it is clear that such development is not aligned with an all-inclusive and encompassing mode of development. To this end, this study adopts Sen’s Capability Approach to development which advocates that development should render people free and capable. Individuals have capabilities which must be enhanced and protected. In the context of land grabbing, land, water, food, culture and political participation have been identified as the human capabilities which require the utmost form of protection and respect. The thesis investigates the ways in which international and domestic legal frameworks on human rights can be used to protect the selected capabilities. While economic development in the form of investments and FDI is necessary in any country, there is a pressing need for such national economic interests to be balanced with human rights of local communities who are the main victims of land grabbing. Accordingly, in terms of the central research question, the study, with references to the two selected jurisdictions, investigates how African states should take appropriate measures and steps to ensure that land investments are compliant with their obligations under international human rights normative framework in a way that renders local communities “capable” in line with Sen’s Capability Approach. In terms of methodology, desk research is used based on reports and data that international research institutions have presented on land grabbing. The common capabilities that are violated in the two jurisdictions are singled out and eventually analysed in line with international human rights framework including the right to development, the right to land, the right to food, the right to water, the right to culture and the right to political participation. The main aim is to examine how a balanced mode of development as proposed by Sen can be achieved using the international framework on human rights, the right to development specifically and the domestic legal framework of the countries. The study concludes that the human rights framework protecting the identified capabilities is not being effectively complied with by the two selected states. In addition, their domestic legislative framework on human rights is not in conformity and harmony with international standards set by treaties and treaties bodies. Accordingly, the study proposes a number of measures that could be taken by states to achieve the balance between national development interests and human rights.

In this study, a qualitative text analysis will identify and present common arguments that are used in the discussion regarding euthanasia. The arguments will then be discussed, following Professor Jürgen Habermas's discourse ethics, to try to reach a mutual compromise and introduce a proposal on which prerequisites for euthanasia could be introduced in society. The study will conclude with an analysis of the pre-debated prerequisites against Professor Martha Nussbaum's capability approach and in so doing make a theoretical validity claim in Habermas's opinion.   What is then revealed in the result is that the proposed list of prerequisites made, is not perfect and the question arises if it is even possible. The theoretical claim of validity can be interpreted from different points of view and thus come up with conflicting answers. The consensus of this study shows that if euthanasia is to be implemented in a society, the prerequisites to be followed should be well-defined and clear.

Educating girls is advantageous for future livelihood security and socio economic development. Menstruating schoolgirls especially need to experience improved menstrual hygiene management (MHM) within schools in order to obtain quality education towards securing future as well as present wellbeing. This paper explores how menstruating schoolgirls’ opportunities are affected by insufficient water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities in schools within Sub-Saharan Africa. The required information has been gathered through a qualitative research method using scientifically based material on the situation of MHM in Sub-Saharan African schools as well as semi-structured questionnaires alongside my personal recollection of MHM. Focus has been given to the capabilities of menstruating schoolgirls under existing WASH facilities in schools analysed through the Capability Approach. Effects of poor MHM in schools are known to cause discomfort and poor constructive participation during lessons as well as decreased school attendance. A gender-based approach has also been examined which presents most schools as non-conducive towards girl’s education promotion. / Utbildning är gynnsam för deras framtida försörjningsmöjligheter samt för socioekonomisk utveckling. Menstruerande skolflickor är mest utsatta under de otillräckliga sanitetsförhållanden som råder i flera skolor söder om Sahara. Den här rapporten utforskar skolflickors förmåga att sköta deras menshygien under skolvistelsen samt hur bristande sanitetsresurser påverkar flickornas framtida utsikter och akademiska kapacitet. Undersökningen är baserad på en kombination av kvalitativa metoder och material som vetenskapliga studier, en semistrukturerade enkätundersökning samt min egen erfarenhet av menshygien i skolor söder om Sahara. Fokus har tillägnats menstruerande skolflickors möjligheter att hantera deras mens i ohygieniska förhållanden genom att koppla detta till ”The Capability Approach”. Avsaknaden av fungerande sanitetsstrukturer försämrar skolflickors välmående vilket leder till nedsatt deltagande under lektioner samt minskad skolgång vid mens. En könsbaserad utgångspunkt har det också påvisat att skolorna är mindre anpassande för flickor.

This thesis examines the wellbeing of India and China’s rural-dwellers in Bihar and Gansu administrative units. It focuses on the food and shelter situation within these regions, from the standpoint of the existing status quo and ongoing trends. Moreover, it gives particular consideration to India and China’s governments’ role in the relevant wellbeing outcomes. Accordingly, this thesis argues for the importance of state capacity, and interest alignment, in driving forward development and preventing avoidable death or suffering. This provides a new angle on the dominant, Amartya Sen-inspired development models that emphasize free choice and democracy as the most immediate and preeminent development concerns. Thus, as this thesis proceeds to show, such Senian priorities increasingly lose value in contexts where weak state capacity or non-interest cannot deliver core well-being essentials. For example, populations that continue to either perish or persist with severe impairments from starvation, malnutrition and occupancy of uninhabitable dwellings are unable to exercise substantive freedoms in a manner envisioned by Sen. However, this does not mean this thesis undervalues democracy and freedom, but rather contends, alongside the most recent development sequencing literature, that strong state capacity is a prerequisite for the implementation of stable, lasting and functional democracy. Indeed, state capacity can give people the essential well-being basics to value, comprehend and utilize their freedoms in a full and non-exploited manner. Consequently, this thesis draws on a two-year fieldwork study in Bihar and Gansu’s villages and relies on 230 (215 valid) semi open-ended questionnaires, 29 stakeholder interviews, three focus group discussions and other relevant sources to bolster its argument and analysis.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2016-08-29T12:56:29Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Marcelo Amado Sette Mosaner.pdf: 5521946 bytes, checksum: 7408d58f678678e26969639b01d28bb6 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-29T12:56:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marcelo Amado Sette Mosaner.pdf: 5521946 bytes, checksum: 7408d58f678678e26969639b01d28bb6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-08 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The Capability Approach (CA) is a normative framework initially developed by Amartya Sen in the seventies, featuring human development as the process of expansion of the range of opportunities available to and valued by individuals. Although the CA has undeniable contributions to welfare assessment - as the creation of the HDI, MPI and other indicators published by UNDP - its critics point out to the huge gap between its key concepts and the real possibilities to use this normative framework in empirical applications, primarily for evaluation issues as quality of life, poverty and inequality. Meanwhile, the field of direct multidimensional poverty measurement is one of the most prominent fields of CA operationalization. In this sense, five central challenges to CA operationalization were first identified and then related to the multidimensional poverty measurement methodology developed by Alkire and Foster (2007, 2011a), focusing on understanding - in general – which are the conditions for empirical applications based on AC framework and - in particular - to what extent the AF methodology responds to these difficulties. The challenges identified relates to the conversion of the intrinsic complexity of measuring human well-being into synthetic indicators : (1) the choice of dimensions, indicators and relative weights, (2) the contrafactual character of the problem of measurement of individual liberties, or capabilities, (3) the question of individual methodological focus or collective, (4) access to data and (5) data aggregation in multiple dimensions. It is concluded that the AF methodology is able to generate multidimensional poverty measures that are consistent with the CA framework, provided that some operational conditions described in the literature are respected. Furthermore, AF has important innovations to public policy as the measure (M0) of multidimensional poverty incidence adjusted to intensity, the adjusted multidimensional poverty gap (M1) and its squared gap (M2) that can be further disaggregated by family, individual or subgroup, making possible to identify simultaneous deprivations suffered by the same unit of analysis / A Capability Approach ou Abordagem das Capacidades (AC), marco normativo desenvolvido inicialmente por Amartya Sen nos anos setenta, caracteriza o desenvolvimento humano como o processo de expansão do leque de oportunidades acessíveis aos indivíduos e por estes valorizadas. Embora as contribuições oriundas da AC para a avaliação do bem-estar sejam inegáveis – como a criação do IDH, IPM e demais indicadores publicados pelo PNUD - seus críticos apontam para a grande lacuna entre seus conceitos essenciais e as possibilidades de operacionalização deste marco normativo em aplicações empíricas. Paralelamente, o campo da mensuração direta da pobreza é uma das áreas de maior possibilidade de operacionalização deste marco normativo. Neste sentido, foi possível identificar na literatura cinco dificuldades centrais à operacionalização da AC, relacionando-as com a metodologia de mensuração de pobreza multidimensional desenvolvida por Alkire e Foster (2007, 2011a). Os objetivos desta análise foram - em geral - compreender quais os condicionantes para plena operacionalização dos conceitos centrais da AC e - em particular – em que medida a metodologia AF responde a tais condicionantes. Os desafios identificados são relacionados ao problema da conversão da complexidade intrínseca da medição do bem-estar humano em indicadores sintéticos, tais como (1) a escolha de dimensões, indicadores e pesos relativos, (2) o problema do caráter contra factual da medição das liberdades individuais, ou capabilities, (3) a questão do foco metodológico: individual ou coletivo, (4) o acesso a dados e (5) a agregação de dados em múltiplas dimensões. Conclui-se que a metodologia AF é capaz de gerar medidas condizentes com o marco normativo em que está inserida, desde que observadas algumas condições de operacionalização previstas na literatura, sistematizadas nesta dissertação. Ademais, AF apresenta inovações importantes para políticas públicas como a medida de incidência da pobreza multidimensional ajustada à intensidade (M0), o hiato de pobreza multidimensional (M1) e seu quadrado (M2) com possibilidade de desagregação no nível do indivíduo, permitindo identificar privações simultâneas por indivíduos, domicílios e dimensão