From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWERI READ, THEREFORE I AMDaybreak in a shanty town brings ample evidence of the centralimportance of essential services in the lives of poor people. Childrenin miraculously pristine school uniforms emerge from the dingiest ofshacks; women set off to the standpipe to collect the day’s water, or dragoff sick and coughing infants to wait in the inevitable queue at the localclinic. Unseen are those excluded from such services: girls kept homefrom school to carry out the domestic chores; disabled or elderlypeople who need particular assistance to take part in public life.The provision of decent public services is one of the key roles of aneffective state, both in terms of building a dynamic economy, and insecuring its own legitimacy. Social investment in health, education,clean water, and sanitation is not a luxury for countries that haveachieved growth, but is in fact a precursor of that growth, and alsomakes it much more likely that growth and its proceeds will be equitable. 26Such services are the basic building blocks of a decent life, enshrinedas universal rights by the United Nations.Improvements are often cumulative: one study in Nigeria foundthat providing health facilities for illiterate mothers increased theirchildren’s life expectancy at birth by 20 per cent, while providingeducation without health facilities raised it by 33 per cent – butproviding health care and education together led to a whopping87 per cent increase in life expectancy. 27 According to poor women withwhom Oxfam works in India,literacy enables them to ‘be more intelligent,40