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From Poverty to Power Green, Oxfam 2008 - weman

From Poverty to Power Green, Oxfam 2008 - weman

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FROM POVERTY TO POWERA NEW DEAL FOR A NEW CENTURYThis book sets out a vision of women and men in communitieseverywhere who are equipped with education, enjoying good health,with rights, dignity, and voice – in charge of their own destinies.Effective, accountable states and a dynamic economy propel countriesforward, ensuring a fair distribution of assets, opportunities, and power.A democratic system of global governance manages the inevitabletensions and impacts of one country on another, and seeks <strong>to</strong> preparefor what increasingly looks like an approaching environmental s<strong>to</strong>rm.The alternative – a world of ever-deepening gulfs between ‘haves’(of wealth, technology, water, soil, carbon) and ‘have-nots’, a dualisticworld of insiders and outsiders – portends the needless suffering ofcontinents, nations, and excluded groups within otherwise wealthycountries. Such a dys<strong>to</strong>pia is not only morally repugnant, but unstableand self-defeating, for the ‘uppers’ (in Robert Chambers’ terminology)will spend much of their time fending off the legions of ‘lowers’hammering at the gates of privilege.How did we get <strong>to</strong> this his<strong>to</strong>ric fork in the road? The twentiethcentury was a breathtaking drama, generating unprecedented bloodshed,but also extraordinary progress in terms of decolonisation,economic growth, the emancipation of women, and technologicalinnovation. In retrospect, however, it missed an unrivalled opportunity<strong>to</strong> use that technological and material progress <strong>to</strong> end poverty andpromote a ‘New Deal’ that would make poverty his<strong>to</strong>ry.428

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