PHA-Exchange> Food for a thought beyond survival

[claudio at hcmc.netnam.vn]

Human Rights Reader 87

EXCUSE THE REDUNDANCY, BUT THE POOR ARE A MAJORITY: HOW DOES THIS MAKE A 
DIFFERENCE IN OUR STRATEGIES AND OUR EVERYDAY WORK? 

1. Processes are occurring every day that make people poor. So, it is 
legitimate to ask: Where is the end of ‘survival’ and where the beginning 
of ‘living’?

2. Being poor, changes people’s incentives and the set of constraints under 
which they operate; it results in a prolonged sense of helplessness.

3. The bare fact is that poor people are excluded from their share in the 
wealth they help to create. That is why the distribution of wealth is as 
important (if not more) as its creation.

4. Because individuals experience poverty and the violation of their rights 
differently --according to their gender, age, caste, class and ethnicity-- 
injustice has to be seen through the eyes of ‘those-who-are-farthest-behind-on-
the-road’ in all of those categories. (Halfdan Mahler)

5. Some are of the opinion that poverty is a rather static concept; they prefer 
using the concept of vulnerability which, they say, is more dynamic and is also 
found at individual, household and community level. 

6. Furthermore, poverty and inequality are actually a source of economic 
inefficiency since both waste human potential.

7. For us in human (people’s) rights (HR) work, poverty is related not only to 
its economic aspects, but is multi-dimensional. It is related to powerlessness, 
to not-being-counted, to not-being-considered, to being-excluded, to being-
unheard. Poverty is related to exploitation, oppression, victimization and 
violence. It is also related to migration, forced displacement, rising 
urbanization and loss of livelihoods. (Final AIFO Document) 

8. As regards health, in our societies, much of health has become a ‘medical-
repair-industry’ of the damage-done-by-poverty (H. Mahler); this so much so 
that, in fact, WHO has created a new category of disease actually 
called “Extreme Poverty” (ICD 10, No. Z 59.5).

9. A sustainable approach to poverty reduction is complex and requires that 
three types of measures be taken to ensure: a) that the improving poor continue 
to improve; b) that the coping poor graduate out of their precarious state; and 
c) that the declining poor have an opportunity to reverse their condition. (U. 
Narayan)

10. Poverty being forced on individuals and families who do not have any other 
choice is unequivocally linked to injustice --and potentially to rebellion. It 
represents a-denial-of-human-rights-on-a massive-scale. Should this fact not 
make a difference in (y)our everyday work?

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
claudio at hcmc.netnam.vn
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MOSTLY TAKEN FROM POVERTY, HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT, HEALTH COOPERATION PAPERS 
NO.17, AIFO, BOLOGNA, ITALY, 2003


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