Part of a series of lectures by Duncan Green, Head of Research at Oxfam GB on key issues raised in his book From Poverty to Power.

1. Risk and Vulnerability
Lecture given by Duncan Green
Head of Research at Oxfam GB
Notre Dame University, September 2009
Part of a series of From Poverty to Power lectures.

2. Main messages
 Risk and vulnerability are central to the experience
of being poor
 Shocks reinforce each other and have long-term
impacts on health and well-being
 Real (human) security lies through a combination
of empowerment and protection by effective,
accountable states
 But the concept of security has been devalued by
the war on terror

3. Defining our terms
 Vulnerability: reduced ability to cope with stresses
and shocks
 Risk: hazard x vulnerability
 Human Security: the opposite of vulnerability,
achieved through combination of:
– Empowerment (active citizens)
– Protection (effective states)

4. Causes of vulnerability

5. Causes of death worldwide

6. Health and maternal mortality:
one woman dies needlessly every minute
 A woman’s risk of dying ranges from one in seven
in Niger to one in 47,600 in Ireland
 Children who have lost their mothers are up to ten
times more likely to die prematurely
 More progress on other health issues, e.g. access
to water and sanitation, immunization, life
expectancy
 ‘First world’ ailments such as heart disease,
diabetes, and cancer are on the rise
 Answer lies in investing in public health systems

7. Pandemics such as HIV will persist,
but can be contained
 Illness and death drives individuals and families into
poverty
 At societal level, pandemics can set development back
decades
 New ‘zoonotic’ diseases may follow HIV in years to
come (e.g. avian/swine flu, SARS)
 Active Citizenship is particularly important for diseases
that have no cure, like HIV
 Political leadership can make or break response (Brazil
v South Africa)
 Global collaboration showed effectiveness in case of
SARS outbreak of 2002/3

8. Achieving Human Security:
Social Protection
 Social assistance: non contributory transfers (eg
food stamps)
 Social insurance: contributory transfers (eg
pensions)
 One of most effective ways to reduce vulnerability,
esp. for the chronic poor (elderly, disabled etc.)
 Response to failure of targeted safety nets/ food aid
 Social protection bridges gap between emergencies
and development – challenge to Oxfam
 South Africa, Brazil arguing for universal basic
income guarantee – could it work at a global level?

9. How change happens:
India’s employment guarantee scheme

10. How change happens:
India’s employment guarantee scheme
 All rural Indians are now guaranteed 100 days
work a year
 Grew from activist legal campaigns in Rajasthan
and spread of ‘rights consciousness’
 Congress adopted scheme in 2004 election
manifesto, not expecting to win
 Sonia Gandhi and activism were crucial to ensure
implementation after the election

11. Hunger and famine

12. Hunger and famine
 Due to current food price crisis, hunger has risen to one
billion, but famine deaths have fallen
 Hunger reflects power and inequality
• 400m people in developing countries are now obese
• Amartya Sen: no famine has ever taken place in a
functioning democracy
 Undernourishment in foetus and infancy are particularly
damaging
 Dealing with hunger relies primarily on self reliance and
effective accountable states
 Current crisis driven by switch to meat, biofuels, climate
change, oil prices, and possibly speculation

13. The food price rollercoaster

14. Natural disasters
 Deaths have halved over last 30 years (to 200 a
day) due to risk reduction such as early warning
systems
 Natural disasters highlight inequality– hit poor
countries and communities hardest
 Disaster preparedness and risk reduction require
Active Citizens and Effective States
 Improving ‘downward accountability’ is a priority

15. Climate change could reverse that progress

16. Conflict is both symptom
and cause of poverty and inequality
 Violence, poverty and inequality are interwoven –
against women, crime, abuse by authorities, civil war
 Progress on gender-based violence through legislation
and women’s organization
 After bloody 20th C, post Cold War has left rump of 30
‘poverty conflicts’ mainly in Africa
 Conflict = failure of politics, but some have acquired
economic logic of their own
 Active Citizens: self organization to reduce conflict
 Effective States: including providing livelihoods for ex-
combatants

17. The humanitarian system
 Only 6% of total aid
 Improving but still a mess. Main failings:
– Too little too late, but CERF is hopeful
– Distributed according to CNN or geopolitics,
rather than need
– Too many organizations. UN particularly
byzantine
 Humanitarian aid warped by food aid – expensive,
demeaning and can undermine local agriculture

18. Peace and peace-keeping
 ‘Responsibility to Protect’ – an important UN
achievement
 Force should only be last resort
 UN blue helmets up 6 x since 1998
 Rich countries give $, poor ones give soldiers
 Does UN need a standing military force?
 Arms Trade Treaty needed
 War on terror undermines peace-keeping/R2P

19. How change happens:
the landmines ban

20. How change happens:
the landmines ban
 1997 ban treaty has led to a sharp fall in deaths. In
2005 only Myanmar, Russia and Nepal
acknowledged using them and producer countries
were down from 50 to 13
 Ban rode post Cold War wave of optimism
 International Campaign to Ban Landmines worked
closely with a handful of governments, e.g.
Canada, Norway, Austria, and South Africa
 Gained momentum by moving outside UN system
and insisting on total ban – no watering down

21. Human security through empowerment :
South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign

22. Further Reading from the Blog
 Climate change and natural disasters,
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=232
 Giving people cash after a disaster,
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=170
 Review of ‘War, Guns and Votes’, by Paul Collier,
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=326
 What would a global food security policy look
like? http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=141
 Oxfam staff blogging under fire in Gaza,
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=122

23. Further Reading
 From Poverty to Power, Part 4
 Paul Collier, ‘War, Guns and Votes’
 FAO. The State of Food Insecurity in the World
(Annual),
http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/i0291e/i0291e00.htm
 World Disasters Report (Annual),
http://www.ifrc.org/publicat/wdr2008/