From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWERthe 1973 drought in Maharashtra, elected politicians responded withpublic works programmes for five million people and averted afamine. Sen concluded that ‘famines are, in fact, so easy to prevent,that is it is amazing that they are allowed to occur at all’.Famines may be the fruit of autocracy rather than democracy but,as Sen acknowledges, democracy has a much less impressive record indealing with endemic hunger and malnutrition. More than 6,000Indian children die every day because of malnourishment or a lack ofbasic micronutrients. 51 Beyond the political changes required to narrowthe distance between governors and governed, Sen sets out anumber of proposals for preventing hunger and famine:• The focus has to be on the economic power and freedom ofindividuals and families to buy enough food, not just onensuring that the country has sufficient food stocks.Government-run temporary job creation schemes(as employed by India) are one of the best ways to helppeople earn enough to buy food.• A good deal of the mortality associated with famines actuallyresults from diseases that can be brought under control bydecent public health systems.• A free press and an active political opposition constitute thebest early-warning system.• Since famines seldom affect more than 10 per cent of thepopulation, governments usually have the resources to dealwith them.Sen also points to the importance of economic growth and thediversification of rural incomes. Growth generates jobs and taxrevenues, allowing governments to fund social protection and reliefschemes, while diversification allows poor families to manage risks byreducing their reliance on any one source of income.In recent years, there have been promising signs in India ofprogress at national level, as citizens’ campaigns around hunger havechanged laws and lives. In 2005, the Indian government passed theNational Rural Employment Guarantee Bill. The bill provides 100days of unskilled manual work for every rural household that wants it,and much of the work itself will help to reduce vulnerability, for228