From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

4 RISK AND VULNERABILITY SHOCKS AND CHANGEeconomic growth) and is insufficient. Governments need to generatesufficient resources to get the job done, in terms of volume andpredictability and from both domestic taxation and international aid.They also need to build effective and honest civil services with theskills to manage complex processes, such as social protection, disasterrisk reduction, and environmental and social adaptation. Moreover,they need the freedom to make the right decisions, without excessiveinterference from international financial institutions, aid donors, orvested interests, whether local or global.Creating the political will to build and then use this capacity wisely isa major challenge. The greatest source of hope lies in the long-termimprovements in governance, such as the spread in recent decades ofcritical media, multi-party democracy, and an active civil society, all ofwhich increase the pressure on governments to work for the benefit oftheir people. The extent of these changes is assessed in Part 2.For rich-country governments, corporations, and other bodies tocontribute positively to this effort – or at a minimum to do no harm –a shift in mentality is required at both government and corporatelevel, away from seeking short-term profit and toward the pursuit ofthe longer-term benefits that accrue from stability and prosperity.Some governments have broadened their conception of the nationalinterest to recognise, first, that security for one state and one group ofpeople depends on the security of others in many parts of the world;and second, that states or intergovernmental bodies such as theEuropean Union, which derive their internal legitimacy from theirrespect for universal rights, must for their own credibility and coherenceact consistently to uphold those rights everywhere in the world.The role of the international community in human security isexamined in Part 5.Progress on building the capacities of people and governments toreduce vulnerability will not come about simply through the jockeyingand evolution of political and economic self-interest. Change is amuch deeper process, involving ideas and beliefs and our changingunderstanding of rights and responsibilities, of what is natural,desirable, or acceptable. The vulnerability and anxiety that blights toomany lives, especially those of poor people, must become unacceptablein every country, just as slavery or women’s exclusion from the vote289