Words

into
Action
Basic rights and the
campaign against
world poverty

Pat Simmons

Oxfam
 © Oxfam (UK and Ireland) 1995

ISBN 085598 3310

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Contents

Acknowledgements 4

The Oxfam Global Charter for Basic Rights 5

The widening gap 7

The vision that faded 11

Stacking the odds against the poor 13

Time for a new vision 31

Basic rights and an end to poverty 35

Caught in the poverty trap 66

An agenda for change 78

Campaigning for change 88

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights 107

 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people for their help:

Kevin Watkins, whose Oxfam Poverty Report I have plagiarised

frequently and at length; and Lindsay judge, whose research on
basic rights I have drawn on extensively.
My colleagues in Oxfam's Resources Unit, most of whom will
recognise pieces of their own writing intertwined with mine.
Pedro Arias, who helped to prepare many of the statistical
graphics.
The many staff in Oxfam's central and regional Campaigns
offices, who made the time to discuss this book with me and to
give me Information, suggestions, reports, and photographs.
Dianna Melrose, and other Overseas Division staff, for advice
and comments.
Colleagues in Oxfam's Photo Library, and Liz Clayton, for
their help with photographs.

All the cartoons are from Baobab, a magazine produced by the

Arid Lands Information Network, in Senegal.

Pat Simmons
Oxford, August 1995